Kathy Poole

Arts Precinct Master Plan • University of Virginia	next
		Competition Winner, Unbuilt Landscapes, Designed Landscape Forum 2000 Our urban landscapes are filled with Wet Lands, spaces that include traditional wetlands but also river zones, drainage swales, and stormwater structures. Culturally they are most often considered marginal landscapes that must be simplified towards polar ends of wet and dry to be useful. Yet it is precisely their marginality that allows them to hold a healthy ambiguity, making them fertile territory for design. The project tests these ideas in a specific design proposal for an expanded arts complex and redefined entry to the University of Virginia. The design transforms a forgotten municipal service--stormwater-- into a valued civic space--a place of public gathering and opportunity for expressing ideas. The design is an expression of two ideas: exchanging surfaces and the ecology of stormwater. First, the design explores the definition of wetlands--the interchange between the surfaces of water and land. Water plants emerge through constructed planes; solid grounds become bridges; and earth wedges ramp into water that reveals and screens them. Second, the dynamic ecological processes of stormwater--sedimentation, vegetation growth and decay, flooding, and toxin removal--are paired with uses and made spaces: Sand/Deposition Theater Marsh/Pool Classroom Entry/Settling Basin. The following pages are copies of publications of the project and describe the project more extensively.