2009 VA ASLA Awards

Analysis & Planning Student - A Street and a Room: the creation of the Vinegar Hill Public Gardens

Honor Award 

Project: A Street and a Room: the creation of the Vinegar Hill Public Gardens 
Student Landscape architect:  Ryan McEnroe, University of Virginia 

This project explores the additions to a significant landscape as a creative endeavor and not simply a preservation "treatment." The site, the Charlottesville Downtown Pedestrian Mall, is one of the few economically successful pedestrian malls that still remain in the United States. Directly west of the downtown mall is a district called Vinegar Hill, a previously thriving African American neighborhood that was demolished as part of the city's urban renewal project in the early 1960's. This project interprets the unrealized Halprin plans for the western end of the Mall, and creates new connections through creative and strategic landscape additions and building subtractions.

The Charlottesville Downtown Mall is a prototypical example of the dilemma currently faced by the profession of landscape architecture. Significant modern designed landscapes are either being preserved or being demolished to make way for a more "contemporary" design.

Currently the Mall is under renovation, where the city is replacing the original 4" x 12" brick pavers set in mortar with 4" x 12" brick pavers set in sand. This change of course is significantly altering the intended design approach that Halprin had for the floor of the Mall.  By realizing Halprin's social vision for the Mall, and not just its formal qualities, the Public Gardens bring a much needed public space and connective tissue to the west end of the downtown district. Rather than seeing the bend in West Main Street and Old Preston Avenue as extensions to the Downtown Mall, I am envisioning this transition space as a "side street and a garden" that helps to move people into the main space of the Mall.  The Public Gardens project interprets the intention and use of preservation through a creative design approach, versus the extension of material and form. The project is seen as a stitch and seam between the economically successful Downtown Mall and emerging residential neighborhoods which surround it.

Some of the jury comments were:
- They could see that the design concept was directly informed by the analysis
- Extremely eye catching and professional graphics
- Love the inclusion of community gardens...a very timely and progressive design