one neighborhood at a time: a regeneration strategy
DESCRIPTION
Portsmouth, Virginia Cities are never finished. Settlement happens, sites are chosen for their natural and strategic advantages, buildings built, and industry churns. Communities grow over time, ushering in change with each generation that grows up with them. While growth and decline is part of a natural order, the most resilient places constantly invest and reinvest, invent and reinvent, and do so neighborhood by neighborhood. Portsmouth is such a place.TRANSCRIPT
portsmouth, virginia
one neighborhood at a timeA Regeneration Strategy
© 2 0 1 1 u r b a n d e s i g n a s s o c i a t e s
Cities are never finished. Settlement happens, sites are chosen for their natural and strategic advantages, buildings built, and industry churns. Communities grow over time, ushering in change with each generation that grows up with them. While growth and decline is part of a natural order, the most resilient places constantly invest and reinvest, invent and reinvent, and do so neighborhood by neighborhood. Portsmouth is such a place.
Urban Design Associates
olde towne
Our neighborhoods are made up of buildings built on the heritage of what came before.
Our neighborhoods are made up of buildings built on the heritage of what came before.
Sustainable urban regeneration
begins in our neighborhoods.
westbury: 1997–2005 hope vi
If we go outside we can go in the backyard,
and ride our bikes and sit on the front porch.
This is ours.
Marquia Eley, Resident
“”
Regenerating neighborhoods
is first a local movement
that then leverages local and
national resources.
westbury: 2005–2010 hope vi
arts & crafts
GeorGian
colonial revival
victorian
Greek revival
classical
Resources are targeted to build back
neighborhoods that connect to local
heritage by using a local Pattern Book
vocabulary for houses, apartments,
parks, and walkable streets.
seaboard square: 2011
olde towne reGenerated neiGhborhoods recent urban desiGn associates/portsmouth reGeneration efforts
Cities are never finished. Each neighborhood that comes back into bloom brings with it the seed for the next generation, the next neighborhood.
special thanks to all involved who helped build one neighborhood at a time
The residents of Ida Barbour, Jeffry Wilson, and surrounding neighborhoods within Portsmouth
Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority The City of Portsmouth, Virginia
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Cornerstone Housing, LLC Chesapeake Community Advisors
Horton & Dodd, P.C. LaQuatra Bonci Associates Dills Architects
project information
The City of Portsmouth and Urban Design Associates have worked together since 1995 incrementally regrowing urban neighborhoods as the primary means to strengthen the city’s urban core. Through this partnership, the collaboration between the city and the design team has produced measurable results and a clear vision for future engagements. Westbury and Seaboard Square were developed under the HOPE VI program. They total 72 acres of redevelopment and nearly 1,000 new housing units that utilize existing infrastructure, is close to employment and education centers, and reinforce the unique identity of Portsmouth’s built heritage.