Layered planning to anticipate future shocks while addressing ongoing stresses, guided by community values and goals.
The Resilient Hampton initiative builds upon earlier work from the City’s participation in Waggonner & Ball’s Dutch Dialogues Virginia: Life at Sea Level workshop in 2015. Afterward, the City committed to a holistic approach in pursuing resilient solutions that integrate environmental, social, and financial factors. Resilient Hampton is a multi-phase effort that includes citywide planning and the design of specific projects that will leverage multiple benefits. This broad, comprehensive, and long-term strategy values existing assets while planning for future adaptation.
Living with Water Hampton: A Holistic Approach to Addressing Sea Level Rise and Resiliency document was the first step in creating a strategy for a resilient city by identifying both threats and community values. Analyzing the main forces of water in Hampton – storm surge, tidal action, stormwater, and groundwater – helps understand the current condition and plan for the future. A principles, goals, and values framework developed from place-driven analysis, including public workshops and community meetings. Understanding places that share common water conditions will guide future projects, and an evaluation tool will assist with prioritizing the implementation of resilience efforts.
Waggonner & Ball and Moffatt & Nichol collaborated with the City of Hampton on an essential effort between a municipality and a military installation to create a long-term vision and implementation plan that improves resilience, both on the base and in the surrounding community. The Hampton Langley JLUS Resilience Addendum is a model for the Hampton Roads region and the country and sets a new standard for how to create potential solutions through projects, partnerships, and policy.
The Resilient Hampton: Newmarket Creek Water Plan studied opportunities and conceptual designs to implement for a tidal urban waterway that routinely floods. Pilot projects, designed by Waggonner & Ball and Moffatt & Nichol, funded by innovative Environmental Impact bonds aim to improve safety and encourage investment, including transforming a drainage ditch into a linear park, elevating a roadway in conjunction with a shared-use trail, and retrofitting a detention pond to store more water and create a nature park.
Resilient Hampton: Downtown Hampton, Phoebus, and Buckroe Beach focused on the long-term resilience of three historic urban neighborhoods all of which are located along the coastal waterfront or near inland waterways. This phase expands beyond flood risk to include planning for urban heat and economic development, providing a comprehensive resilience framework for the oldest neighborhoods in the city.
The first pilot project to be completed is Lake Hampton, an existing artificial pond sitting within the floodplain that was retrofitted to hold stormwater from and adjacent road and surrounding communities. In addition to stormwater features, a trail around the lake with two boardwalks provides overlooks of the water and opportunities to engage with the habitat. An existing peninsula was cut off from the lakeshore to serve as a protected island for bird nesting.
Client
City of Hampton, VA
Year
2017-Present
Awards
AIA New Orleans Honor Award, Master Planning and Urban Design
AIA Louisiana Merit Award