Studio this week

My studio this semester is considering methods to densify Downtown Charlottesville. This past week our studio worked in collaboration with architectural history students who have been studying downtown since last semester. Our professors asked us to look at a transect of a few blocks and consider:

What is the most significant element that has stayed the same?
What is the most significant change?
What is the most significant trace of something that is no longer there, but can still be read on site?

Here my partners are looking at a place where windows were removed at some point, and painted signs from a time when downtown had more "everyday" kind of retail (now, the Mall is mostly restaurants and specialized retail).