You don’t have to thumb too far in the dictionary to find the word architecture. In essence it means the art or science of building. However, for co-executives Joseph St. Martin and Deron L. Brown of St. Martin, Brown & Associates, the “art of heart” might be a suitable redefinition.

In the era of post-Katrina they’ve been heavily involved in reclamation projects overseas, here in New Orleans, and all over the nation, helping rebuild what was lost, forgotten, or completely disregarded. As early as August 2006 they presented an urban development plan for Eastern New Orleans that was incorporated into the citizen-led Unified New Orleans Project (UNOP), a project aimed at empowering the community to lead in the reconstruction first hand. Volunteering their services, they met with local residents and neighborhood officials to create specific blueprints for how to go about the rebuilding effort.

It was during this 3,000 citizen effort that Brown says he and St. Martin experienced first- hand the pride and evolving synergy that forever changed their outlook on the goal of their profession.

“When I really saw the impact of what we did was when we had citizens, who had lost everything that they owned, had nothing, and they turned to us to be their voice, and be their champion and help the situation,” Brown says. “So what we prided ourselves on was being able to take a situation with devastation and find the opportunity to help.”

You’d think these guys were getting paid in hugs and adulation the way they light up when talking about the wild ride architecture has taken them on these past few years. To be sure, they have taken part in some outstanding projects for a small, Black-owned architecture company.

Their business has gone from being virtually unknown to key game players with chess-pieces located everywhere from 9th Ward New Orleans to Haiti and most recently to Africa’s Abuja and Nigeria.

Latching On

Before the days of blueprints and post-disaster projects, the two men were just students at Louisiana State University trying not to break the pencil on the ruler’s edge of a profession that seemed limited for Black students.

“We were two African-Americans in a predominantly non-African-American field; and we sort of latched onto each other in our second year, developed a strong relationship and never looked back since,” St. Martin says.

Brown, a native of Baton Rouge and the son of a pastor, was motivated into the profession when as a youth he would see his father toil in the hot sun doing contractor work and thought “there had to be a better way to do something like this and not be in the heat.”

“So architecture was the choice,” he says with a snicker.

Joseph St. Martin, with no fear of sizzling in the sunlight, remembers late night after school when he would stay with his mom at work. She was the executive director of Safety and Permits for New Orleans.

“I would literally, from the time I got out of school (to) maybe 6 o’clock at night, sit at her office, and to pass the time, she would actually have me look at building frames and blueprints,” he says. “So it encouraged me to get familiar with architecture at an early age.”

Already blessed with an affinity for drawing, coloring, and building, his interest in architecture grew naturally.

But what took these two from a couple of dreamers to leading a firm with national notoriety was their willingness to do whatever it took to help when they were needed. Six years after college, they met again at Perez Architecture firm, the company best remembered for being the lead design team behind New Orleans’ 1984 World’s Fair. One was employed there while the other did some contract work for the firm. Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, they decided to start their own firm, in part, fueled by the desire to help others and put their mark on rebuilding the city at all costs.

“Our very first project (UNOP), we were able to kind of write the history and the future of New Orleans because it was the largest planning process that the United States had seen.” Brown says. “To be able to come in and have a community planning process that involved or engaged the entire city—it’s definitely a legacy that we can leave for generations beyond us.”

St. Martin concurs with his friend and business partner as the 18-month UNOP project became a “blueprint for recovery post-Katrina.” Studies and the influences from this project would aid in other city-wide recovery efforts; and for the two former LSU Tigers, that influence would also make an impact a world away.

Rising Up

In January 2010, Haiti was struck with a cataclysmic 7.0 magnitude earthquake, the likes of which they had never seen before. According to published reports, approximately 316,000 people died in the merciless mayhem, nearly one million people were left homeless and over 200,000 residences destroyed. It was in the aftermath of this perilous situation that Deron Brown received a phone call from his good friend Lewis Saint-Lot, the influential son of a former Haitian representative to the United Nations. Responding to his pleas for help and guidance, the two businessmen immediately headed to Haiti to lend a hand however they could.

St. Martin remembered it clearly.

“We immediately sympathized and felt like we had gone through the same thing they had gone through. So we wanted to empower the locals and train them on concepts of rebuilding.” 

With the community planning experiences they gained post-Katrina, they were able to help Haitian government officials develop guidelines for the rebuilding process.

“So our involvement was to go down there and help train people on the planning process,” St. Martin says.

Once they did that and returned home, a new plan was forming, rising even, and it would be the opportunity to once again change lives on a new platform they could have never imagined.

ESPN has a brand for high school athletics called RISE. Through it, they were teaching high school student athletes about the importance of wellness, health and training. But across the country, they were finding that many of the school facilities just weren’t up to par for students to adequately benefit from the education and training.

So in 2010 ESPN decided to create a sports-centered series called “Rise Up” that is modeled after the popular “Extreme Makeover Home Edition.” Instead of homes, however, disadvantaged or devastated schools were given an opportunity to have their athletic departments and facilities reshaped and redesigned.  

With the notoriety they gained from their post-Katrina recovery projects, and a marketing affiliation with the New Orleans Saints, St. Martin Brown and Associates were commissioned to help with a rebuilding project for Eleanor McMain High School as a part of “Rise Up”.

It was such a critical success in the eyes of ESPN that more projects and events got scheduled and since 2010, St. Martin’s and Brown’s architecture firm has partnered with schools in Seattle, Boston, Chicago, and Ohio for the series, which currently airs on the family of ESPN networks.

Brown laughs when trying to determine what experience gave them the most professional joy.

“To me it’s a tie between the recovery plans for the city of New Orleans and the ESPN “Rise Up” because those projects impacted people’s lives immediately, and we were able to see that impact,” he says. “We were able to help people all across the nation.”

As the future looms, they talk about their dream projects, which extends to state-of-the-art high-tech neighborhoods in third world countries, and a technology district in New Orleans with the means to make the city run more efficient.

But one thing is for certain with these two men. They don’t just design buildings. They help build lives. And for them the greatest tool for creating the perfect architectural structure, is the will to keep on rising.