Charlottesville, VA
with Jim Rounsevell, Architect

Project Gait-way: A New Civic Landscape for Charlottesville, Virginia, is an outgrowth of an intense public process and public competition surrounding a crumbling 1960’s railroad overpass. This proposal explores the reclamation of the surrounding rail yard and remnant bridge as a place of innovative community re-development and pedestrian focused connectivity between downtown Charlottesville and the vibrant neighborhood of Belmont. The project proposes the replacement of the condemned bridge with a topographic underpass and iconic pedestrian bridge set within an articulated public landscape of new development. This proposal will create both physical and visual connectivity in a precinct currently defined as an unpleasant experiential void congested with vehicular traffic and exposed to the environmental elements. The new precinct is shaped as a zone for innovative mixed use, community services, arts expansion and ecological best practices.