18th Voice

18th Voice

Marianne Cusato is known for her Katrina Cottage (2005), displayed as a prototype at the International Builders’ Show in Orlando, FL, and then picked up by Lowe's.

She was part of a team of architects invited to New Orleans by Andrés Duany, designer of New Urbanist towns across the country, who was drafted by Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, to provide advice on how to rebuild devastated coastal cities. Cusato’s cottages — unlike their prefabricated competitors — are not designed to fit on trucks. With British architect Leon Krier,  Cusato published the wrote the book, Get Your House Right: How to Avoid Common Mistakes in Today’s Traditional Architecture (2008). The volume is meant to show people how to design houses, of any size, with appropriately scaled details.

Cusato studied architecture at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.