Pitt urges New Orleans to 'build something smarter'

Brad Pitt is putting his money toward turning New Orleans green, but he's seeing red over the slow pace of reconstruction in the city's poorest neighbourhoods.

Pitt was critical over the slow pace of rebuilding areas hit by Hurricane Katrina two years ago as he toured an environmentally friendly home being built by a non-profit group in the storm-ravaged LowerNinth Ward.

"It's hard to find an overall victory when you see how slowly everything is still moving," said the star of Oceans Thirteen and Babel.

"We've got to push to get these levees taken care of and correct the engineering mistakes of the past and get these wetlands taken care of for this city," he said after touring the ward on Tuesday.

Pitt pointed out the green features of a three-bedroom, single-family home being built in a poor section of the city by non-profit group Global Green USA.

"A lot of thought has gone into this house," he said of the design by New York architects Matthew Berman and Andrew Kotchen, a design which won a competition sponsored by Pitt and Global Green.

The house is designed to save energy and water for the people who move in and includes energy-saving appliances, soy-based insulation, paperless drywall, solar panels and a roof designed to help insulate the house and collect rain water.

It is the first of five homes to be built in the Holy Cross section of the Lower Ninth Ward. Plans also call for an 18-unit apartment complex and community centre.

"We knew we couldn't bring back the families and friends who were lost, bring back the heirlooms and pictures, but maybe, in the process of rebuilding, we could build something smarter to create a better way of life," Pitt said.

"Katrina was a man-made disaster. This house here is a man-made solution."

Pitt is an architecture fan and took a personal interest in the design competition that led to the project.

With his partner Angelina Jolie, he bought an early-1830s masonry mansion in the city's French Quarter for $3.5 million US in January.