Rebuilding New Orleans
Brad Pitt Breaks Ground on Green-Housing Project
PEOPLE. MAY 10, 2007. By Mary Green
Brad Pitt may be halfway around the world with his family in Prague, but on Thursday, ground was broken on his green-housing project in New Orleans.
Pitt, 43, tells PEOPLE: "The greatest victory for me will be when the first people move into one of these green homes – when they can put their key into that lock, sit down at the table, have dinner with their families and live their lives. That's what we're getting closer to with this announcement today."
Last year, Pitt co-sponsored a competition with Global Green USA to find an affordable, Earth-friendly plan for building housing and community centers in neighborhoods ravaged the previous year by Hurricane Katrina.
Photo by Alex Brandon / AP
In August, he announced the winners of his Sustainable Design Competition for New Orleans: New York City architects Andrew Kotchen and Matthew Berman of the firm Workshop/APD.
"Communities need to be rebuilt here and we hope this project points the way to how it can be done using smart sustainable design," Pitt tells PEOPLE.