Reclaiming the Fall Zone: Mediating Physical and Cultural Exchange in Richmond, VA

Abstract

This thesis will address cultural and physical place reclamation, at the

ambiguous intersection of ‘city’ and nature.’ By creating a juxtaposed sequence of

multi-scalar interventions, which challenge the conventional boundaries of

architecture, and landscape architecture; in order to make commonplace a new

dynamic threshold condition in Richmond, Virginia. At its core, this thesis is an

attempt at place-making on a site which has become ‘no place.’

This concept will be manifest via a landscape park on Mayo Island in

Richmond, anchored by a community retreat center, and architectural follies along a

constructed path. The interventions will coincide with value of place in historical

Richmond: an integrated, socially desegregated waterfront hinge; a social nexus of

inherent change, at the point which the river itself changes at the fall line.