On Architecture


ON ARCHITECTURE- Procurement predicament? City outsources Downtown Mall project Published on Jan 9th, 2009 2 comments Locally-based demolition company Parham Construction went to work on the Downtown Mall this week, but of the 9 contracts for the $7.5 million project, only two were awarded to local companies.PHOTO...
ONARCHITECTURE- Building stories: Preservation, the Mall, mark '08 Published on Dec 25th, 2008 0 comments Brick Shtick: In 2008, we said a long good-bye to the Mall's embattled brick work after 32 years of service. Come May, we hope, the Mall's $7.5 million re-bricking job should finally make it safe for...
Preservation predicament: New Alliance hopes to help Published on Dec 18th, 2008 8 comments Why is this house still at risk of demolished? PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER Both Charlottesville City Council and its Board of Architectural Review have denied the owner of the Moon-Henderson House on 10...
Before and After: 400 Preston gets extreme make-over Published on Dec 11th, 2008 22 comments FuturePresentPast"The before and after picture will tell the story," says architect Gate Pratt, responding to some early criticism about the new look.PHOTOS COURTESY LIMEHOUSE ARCHITECTS For...
ONARCHITECTURE- Fear mode: Merchants ask city to halt Mall project Published on Dec 4th, 2008 9 comments With the $7.5 million Mall re-bricking scheduled to begin in about a month, some Mall business say the timing of the project couldn't be worse.FILE PHOTO BY WILL WALKER On December 1, the National...
ONARCHITECTURE- Big Squeaky Wheel: Neighbors form new alliance Published on Nov 27th, 2008 5 comments Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris welcomes the newly formed Alliance of Neighborhoods. "Right now," he says, " the squeakiest wheels tend to get the grease, and that's not always fair."FILE PHOTO BY...
ONARCHITECTURE- Take-out: Mall renovation could shrink cafés Published on Nov 20th, 2008 3 comments Rapture's manager Mike Rodi said he disliked the idea of reducing everyone's space in the name of fairness. " The priority should not be on fairness, but on making sure that restaurants thrive," he...
ONARCHITECTURE- Mudfront property: Developer, homeowners disagree on 'Lake' Saponi Published on Nov 13th, 2008 0 comments Five years ago, Lake Saponi resident Eric Nutter had a lake behind his house, but today he has this. PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR As a homeowner at Lake Saponi in Greene County, Eric Nutter pays additional...
ONARCHITECTURE- Jilted park: Forest Hills funding snatched Published on Nov 6th, 2008 0 comments This master plan for the renovation of Forest Hills Park will have to be shelved, as funds for the project were reallocated due to "financial realities." CHARLOTTESVILLE CITY Just weeks...
ONARCHITECTURE- Dark passages: Haunting DeJarnette buildings get a reprieve Published on Oct 30th, 2008 1 comments Developers wanted to tear down this complex.PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER Last October, 29-year old "Laura" (the woman did not want her last name used, for reasons that will soon become clear) attended a...
ONARCHITECTURE- Saved by zero: Sustainability offers sustenance Published on Oct 23rd, 2008 0 comments Architect Jeff Christian hopes to one day build a zero-energy home.PHOTO FROM OAK RIDGE LABORATORY WEBSITE As the building industry as we know it seems to be collapsing, and as fuel prices soar, the...
ONARCHITECTURE- Sacred ground? Ridge Street sale raises the dead Published on Oct 16th, 2008 3 comments Does a family cemetery exist on this property at the corner of Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue? The debate about whether an old family graveyard exists on near-Downtown land that Southern...
ONARCHITECTURE- UVA BOV POV: Buildings not Jeffersonian enough, again? Published on Oct 9th, 2008 2 comments Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Architects In what is beginning to seem like a scene in the movie Groundhog Day, designs for two planned buildings at UVA have been sent back to the drawing board by the Board...
ONARCHITECTURE- Historic measures: Jeff Center to break ground Published on Oct 2nd, 2008 0 comments VMDO ARCHITECTS WEBSITE It's been nine months since UVA's Jefferson Scholars Foundation leveled the Eugene Bradbury designed Beta House on Maury Avenue. The demolition went forward despite...
ONARCHITECTURE- Helter shelter: Arch students make $10 homes Published on Sep 25th, 2008 0 comments Modeled after a Conestoga Wagon, this 10-dollar shelter was made out of strips of plastic tarp, grocery bags, and wire mesh.PHOTO COURTESY JOHN QUALE Recently, about a dozen UVA students found...
ONARCHITECTURE- Poet to Architect: Remaking the way we see things Published on Sep 18th, 2008 0 comments "My intention was to capture in language something of that enormous, terrifying, and inspiring dynamism of the sun," says poet Lisa Williams, "...how it destroys, renews, and...
ONARCHITECTURE- Shabby slab? Old Mall studies raise new questions Published on Sep 11th, 2008 0 comments A pair of recently discovered Mall studies say the heaving bricks are the result of the failing concrete slab beneath them. FILE PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR For months, the debate over the $7.5 million...
ONARCHITECTURE- Handymillionaire special: 'The Lodge' goes on the block Published on Sep 4th, 2008 0 comments Famed local architect Eugene Bradbury designed the Charlottesville Country Club on Rugby Road in the late 1900s. In 1950, the Chi Psi Fraternity bought the building, which has been known since then...
ONARCHITECTURE- Presto, chango: Kuttner wants to make cars vanish Published on Aug 28th, 2008 0 comments "The single biggest construction error I've made was not putting parking under the Terraces," developer Oliver Kuttner told the BAR.FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO Last week, always-ebullient developer...
ONARCHITECTURE- Rock opera: Construction begins on the Jefferson Published on Aug 21st, 2008 0 comments "It won't be quite as ornate as the Paramount," says Gate Pratt, project architect for the Jefferson Theater renovation, "but it will have a simple elegance, already contained in the original design...
ONARCHITECTURE- Waste not, want not: should Mall bricks be re-used? Published on Aug 14th, 2008 0 comments ? Green City? Eighty percent of the Mall's bricks are in good shape, according to City planners. So why isn't the City re-using any of them as part of the $7 million Mall renovation project?...
ONARCHITECTURE- Knock on wood: Proposed recycling facility riles Keswick Published on Jul 31st, 2008 22 comments "We as a community are surprised that the County would even entertain such a special use application," says Fox Hunt Drive resident Colt Peyton, talking about a proposed wood recycling facility off...
ONARCHITECTURE- Bricks and mortar? Council approves $7.5 mil Mall project Published on Jul 24th, 2008 0 comments On July 21, despite the fact that over 70 percent of the bricks on the Downtown Mall are in good condition, City Council approved a plan to tear up the existing bricks and replace them between...
ONARCHITECTURE- Single-streamin': Why not try private sector recycling machine? Published on Jul 17th, 2008 4 comments "Help is on the way, help that's really going to work," says Peter van der Linde, whose $11 million recycling facility should be operational in 60 to 90 days. Developer and entrepreneur...
ONARCHITECTURE- Downtown ground: Relics saved, new towers rise Published on Jul 10th, 2008 1 comments The Mall could be torn up next year, but one of its famous relics is safe and sound. In May, the City auctioned off the Mall's old kiosk (seen here when it was a flower shop), and one lucky bidder...
ONARCHITECTURE- Sand bagged? Foes toss brickbats at Mall plan Published on Jul 3rd, 2008 0 comments Mall designer Lawrence Halprin has said the herringbone pattern of the bricks "establishes the character for the Mall." If City planners get their way, replacing the existing bricks with new sand-set...
ONARCHITECTURE- Belmont Hall: Beta House revisited in Preston fight Published on Jun 19th, 2008 1 comments This month, Belmont Hall at 603 Dale Avenue was both condemned and recommend for special historic protection by the City. PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR In April, in the wake of a landmark demolition and after...
ONARCHITECTURE- Huja speaks: Mall project can be done for 'a lot less' Published on Jun 12th, 2008 0 comments Another brick in the Mall: Some City Councilors think its time to re-think the Mall renovation project and slash its $7.5 million budget.PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR On June 16, City planners will ask City...
ONARCHITECTURE- Mauling the Mall? Don't change the bricks: Halprin Published on Jun 5th, 2008 9 comments Lawrence Halprin, the renowned landscape architect who designed the Downtown Mall, urges the city not to change the size of the bricks as part of its proposed $7.5 million renovation.FILE PHOTO BY...
ONARCHITECTURE- Mall renovation: 'Simple' $7.5 million solution? Published on May 29th, 2008 3 comments In February, City Council said no to more fountains on the Mall, but they sprang up again before the Board of Architectural Review.MMM DESIGN GROUP What's been officially referred to as a "renovation...