Blasterz are prairie dwellers, so we are always fascinating by large civil engineering water projects. The Morgan City Floodwalls are massive, and are interesting not only for what they do, but also for how they add interest to what could be a dreary part of the waterfront in this gritty yet historic city.
Blasterz thought this was such a cool project that it MUST have won some award somewhere and we were right. In 1987 the retrofitting and height extension of the Morgan City floodwalls won the Award of Merit in the Landscape Artchitecture category. Only US Army Corps of Engineering projects are eligible for this designation.
From Volume 12, Engineer Update, a publication of the US Army Corps of Engineers: (
visit link)
"Winners of the 1987 Chief of Engineers Design and Environmental
Awards Program were announced Dec. 17 in Washington, D.C.
Thirty-four Corps of Engineers projects were selected for awards by
juries of distinguished professionals in the respective design disciplines. The Corps had entered 132 projects in the worldwide competition.
All civil works and military construction projects completed in the
past four years were eligible for entry in four competition categories: architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and environment.
Entries judged worthy of recognition received one of four awards. In
ascending order of importance they are:
Honorable Mention Award: This award may be given to any number of projects to recognize superior features or concepts that overall do not qualify for a higher award.
Award of Merit: This award may be given to projects that exhibit outstanding design or environmental achievement. (Maximum
of three per category).
Honor Award: This award may be given to one project in each category
to recognize an exceptionally distinguished accomplishment.
Chief of Engineers Award of Excellence: This award goes to one
project. To be considered for this award, a project has to receive an Honor Award or Award of Merit in at least one category and exhibit
design excellence in more than one category.
The Chief of Engineers Design and Environmental Awards Program
is a biannual competition that started in 1965. The program supports
the Federal Design Improvement Program.
The object of the program is to encourage design and environmental
professionals to develop projects which exhibit excellence in function, economy, resource conservation, aesthetics and creativity,
while being in harmony with the environment.
The next competition will be held in December 1989.
. . .
Award of Merit: New Morgan City Area Floodwalls, Morgan City and Berwick, La.
Design firms: Fromherz Engineers, Inc. and Greiner Engineering Science, Inc.
Supervised by: New Orleans District.
Morgan City and Berwick, La., are at the lower end of the Atchafalaya Basin Floodway. The floodwalls protecting Morgan City and Berwick
are part of an extensive levee system lining the floodway. Corps structural design engineers and local interests were greatly concerned about the visual impact of a monolithic concrete structure
17 feet high running along more than a mile of riverfront.
Both the aesthetics of the structure and the overall landscape design were some of the primary considerations in floodwall design.
There were three design objectives: (1) reduce the visual impact of the structure’s 17-foot height, (2) make the wall aesthetically pleasing, (3) incorporate the floodwall into the overall
environment."