Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, & Norfolk

“Designing the Future of Coastal Virginia Beach & Chesapeake” (2020)

Dr. Mintai Kim’s annual Fall 2020 coastal resilience design studio with the Virginia Tech landscape architecture students provided an opportunity to look at broader geographic scales. Students looked at sites in both Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. In Virginia Beach, students focused on a wooded property in the Southern Watershed of Virginia Beach, designing an alternative wooded use that would support a land trade between the City and the property owner who intended to clear the land and install a cemetery.

The student designs inspired the City of Virginia Beach to prioritize keeping the land wooded and negotiate a land exchange with the property owner to move the proposed cemetery to a less environmentally sensitive area. In Chesapeake, students explored design strategies in a neighborhood along Mains Creek that has been the subject of several local property acquisitions. This provided an interesting design challenge for students, as residents of communities that have had properties bought out and demolished often complain about the impact on community character. The Mains Creek designs also supported Wetlands Watch’s Conservation Pilot Project.

Reports:

“Designing the Future of Coastal Virginia Beach & Chesapeake Report: Part One” (2020)