PORTSMOUTH: A RESILIENT EVOLUTION

Status: Designed

Project Team: Ariana Arenius, Paris Casey, Christopher Cheng, Amanda Ferzoco, Randa Malkawi, Catherine C. Hendrick, Kenneth Johnston, Kristin L. Jones,  Mert Kansu, Michael Lawson, James Vidoni, Gabriela Orizondo, Allison Powell, Zach Robinson, Jacob Sherry, Matt C. Stevinson 

Client: City of Portsmouth

Location Portsmouth, VA

​

    The Emerging Leaders in Architecture (ELA) honors program, organized each year by AIA, brings select talents from Virginia together to create a community of leaders in design. 2020’s challenge was (apart from the global pandemic that shifted how the program was conducted) to work with the community of Portsmouth to design a equitable and thriving downtown. As a group we have aimed to tackle this in multiple scales, with the big idea being, having two anchors, one on the waterfront (High St. Landing), and one inside the city (Green St. Crossing). These were used as magnets to attract residents and visitors to the city, connected by the redesigned, High St. serving as the conductor between these main nodes of development. Personal effort is included in most parts of the project development but focused mainly on way-finding, re-branding, and designing our group’s final publication work.