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Resilient Hampton

Layered planning to anticipate future shocks while addressing ongoing stresses, guided by community values and goals.

Waggonner & Ball is the prime consultant for Resilient Hampton, which builds upon earlier work from the Dutch Dialogues® Virginia: Life at Sea Level workshop in. The City committed to a holistic, multi-phase effort that includes citywide planning, addressing resilience with a local military base, and the design of specific projects that will create multiple benefits. This broad, comprehensive, and long term strategy values existing assets while planning for future adaptation.


The Phase 1 Living With Water® Hampton document is
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 – help
understand the current condition and plan for the
future. A framework of principles, goals, and values
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 implementation of resilience efforts.


A partnership with Langley Air Force Base developed a
unique addendum to a previous Joint Land Use Study
in order to prioritize design strategies for resilience
and adaptation, so that the City of Hampton can
continue to support the base.

Phase 2 of Resilient Hampton is a study of opportunities and conceptual designs to implement for Newmarket Creek, an urban waterway that routinely floods. Projects aim to improve safety and encourage investment, include transforming a drainage ditch into a linear park that stores more water to reduce flooding, elevating a roadway in conjunction with a shared use trail and bioswales, retrofitting a detention pond to store more water and create a nature park, and a grant program for residents to install green infrastructure. These projects are funded through an innovative environmental impact bond (EIB) to help finance resilience projects, and are currently advancing toward construction.



Client

City of Hampton, VA

Year

2017-Present

Awards

AIA New Orleans Honor Award, Master Planning and Urban Design

AIA Louisiana Merit Award