2009 VA ASLA Awards

Analysis & Planning Student - Second Street Addition

Honor Award 

Project: Second Street Addition
Student Landscape architects:  Zoe Edgcomb, Serena nelson, Chihiro Shinohara; University of Virginia

This project was undertaken as part of an 800 level core landscape architectural design studio called Landscape Additions. The studio was conceived in response to the City of Charlottesville's proposals for alteration of the Downtown Mall. Students analyzed the social, hydrological and phenomenological flows along a significant side street of the Mall, and made proposals for adding to, extending and/or altering an historic modern urban landscape.

Second Street Addition transforms Second Street into a rhythmically charged counter-axis to the Charlottesville Downtown Mall, connecting the North Downtown and Friendship Court neighborhoods. An existing urban fabric of commercial, civic and residential spaces is overlaid with a series of four "rooms" differentiated by structural metering, storm water treatment configurations, and plantings as places for dynamic social encounters on the Mall.

It is our hope that the work of our group and the others in this studio brings a rigor to design, through historical research, first-hand contact with the principal designer, and diagrammatic analysis techniques. Our project accommodates programmatic issues such as connection of neighborhoods, integration of public and commercial spaces, and updated environmental techniques.

Through analysis, design and representation, Second Street Addition suggests possibilities for a socially vibrant space which not only preserves, but revitalizes a significant modern landscape.

Some of the jury comments were:
- Thorough analysis of sustainability
- Innovative methods of analysis
- Excellent process and graphics