Taryn Wiens - Lived Tapestry

Fall 2018, Foundation Studio III
Collaborative Project with Chloe Nagraj. Work executed by myself unless otherwise noted.
Elizabeth Meyer and Emma Mendel
2019 VA ASLA Commendation Award in the Residential Design Category

Beginning in 2019, the non-profit Piedmont Housing Alliance will begin redeveloping Friendship Court, an affordable housing development in Charlottesville, Virginia, tripling the number of residents with a commitment to zero displacement. Our project proposes a design for the landscape that connects current and future Friendship Court residents to the social fabric of adjacent neighborhoods by orienting lived space around trajectories into and out of the site. Countering the coarse-grain, isolated condition of the superblock, we envision these trajectories as fine-grain, richly layered spaces that hold flows and pauses of daily life. Food sovereignty is an integral element of the new landscape: going beyond the current coarse-grain community garden run by an off-site non-profit, we propose edible gardens woven into the site at multiple scales and offering many levels of buy-in from residents: from edible ornamental trees to a small urban farm. Corridors of circulation are expanded into rich multi-use landscapes, providing opportunities for encountering both friends and strangers, ground for pursuing food sovereignty, and space for gathering together.

conceptual strategy: pedestrian circulation integrated into areas for pause (gardening, sitting, playing, barbecuing) to create many potential interfaces for encountering both friends and strangers
collage by Chloe Nagraj

going beyond the current community garden run by an off-site non-profit, we propose edible gardens woven into the site at multiple scales and offering many levels of buy-in from residents: gardens that better serve residents nutritionallly, socially, and economically.

Site Plan executed with Chloe Nagraj. Trajectories into and out of the site organize richly layered space.

Concrete scoring patterns, planted form, benches, program areas and planting beds create lived space around each path into and out of the site.

The organizing principle of trajectories makes many opportunities for neighbors to witness each other in daily life. These cross-sections of the trajectory to the left show areas of flow (in white) layered with areas for lingering and pausing (in red), creating many interfaces for encounter in the day-to-day.