Monday, March 26, 2007
Plan for Money Point Wins Prestigious Planning Award
The Plan for Money Point, spear-headed by the Elizabeth River Project and facilitated by UVa Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN) Director Frank Dukes and IEN Associate Christine Gyovai, has won a prestigious 2007 Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Places, Planning Award. Asst. Professor of Architecture Phoebe Crisman and Michael Petrus’s design firm Crisman+Petrus Architects provided the urban design for the project as well as prepared the final report. Others who contributed include: graduate student of urban and environmental planning, Clark Larson; the students in PLAC 524 during the 2004-05 academic year who developed a community history and did other work; and Margaret Kirby and Casey Williams who worked on the project as IEN interns.
The plan calls for a host of environmental improvements in Money Point, an industrial area just west of I-464 in South Norfolk, Virginia. To be implemented over the next ten years, the work is timed to coincide with a $5.5 million cleanup of contaminated sediment at the bottom of the Elizabeth River. Other features of the plan include the creation of a 100-foot-wide buffer of vegetation designed to filter chemicals out of storm water running off Money Point into the river and the construction of a playground, sidewalks, and other civic improvements in the small Money Point residential community.
Also in the plan is the creation of a Learning Barge, a floating classroom, where school-aged children will learn about the revitalization process taking place on and along the Elizabeth River. The jury complimented “the design of a ‘learning barge’ that will allow schoolchildren to experience the life of the river.” The team of students and faculty who are researching / designing / building / preparing curriculum for the barge form the Learning Barge Project, directed by Asst. Professor of Architecture Phoebe Crisman.
According to EDRA: “EDRA/Places Awards recognize projects whose significance extends beyond any one profession or field. The awards emphasize a link between research and practice. They demonstrate how a careful understanding of people and their interactions with places can inspire design.”
The Plan for Money Point will be published in the journal Places, volume 19, issue 3.
Jury members included:
- Buzz Yudell
Principal, Moore Ruble Yudell
- Roberta Feldman
Professor of Architecture, University of Illinois-Chicago
- Michael Pyatok
Pyatok Associates, and Arizona State University
- Ann Forsyth
Director, Metropolitan Design Center, University of Minnesota
- Anne Whiston Spirn
Professor of Landscape Architecture, MIT
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