2007 VA ASLA Awards

General Design Professional - The Dell at the University of Virginia

 

Honor Award 

Project: The Dell at the University of Virginia
Landscape Architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz
Architect: VMDO Architects
Client: University of Virginia
Construction management: Barton Malow Co.
Fluvial geomorphologist: Biohabitats of Maryland
Civil engineer (design):Nitsch Engineering
Local civil engineer: PHRA
Ecologist: Biohabitats of Virginia

The Dell is a significant cultural, social, and ecological site on the grounds of UVA. It's a place of basketball, tennis, informal Frisbee and intramural workouts. It has also been a landscape of quiet beauty that offers respite from the busy campus life above. And perhaps most crucially, it's an 11 acre stream valley through which the headwaters of a major regional watershed flow. Over the years, many sections of the stream have been piped to accommodate development, severely compromising the biological integrity of the stream system.

Initially this project was to be purely a stream restoration of a 1200 linear foot section of Meadow Creek, a project proposed by the University's Strategic Plan for Water Resources Management. The strategic plan recognizes stormwater as an important resource and identifies several opportunities at UVA that capitalize on inherent qualities of the landscape to manage stormwater and recharge the local aquifer. Wherever possible, the plan recommends day lighting natural streams to restore their ecological functions in the landscape.

The significance of the project lies in its success as a beautiful park in a highly visible location while providing critical stormwater management functions for major projects downstream, habitat for wildlife, and restored stream to the watershed of Meadow Creek. Here the landscape architect is leading in a realm once relegated to civil engineers. By collaborating with civil engineers and guiding the aesthetic development, the project is successful both as a functional stormwater management system and restored stream while at the same time as a place of great beauty.