WATER PLAYGROUND -Richmond Pocket Quarry Refreshment

University of Virginia, University of Virginia School of Architecture

Project idea

Wonderland for river, land, and people.

Project description

Richmond is a city with a long history of segregation and it's a racialized landscape. The public housing, slum clearance and city expansion, are aimed at low-income African Americans as an intentional segregation gesture. Most of the displacement areas were undesirable with the issue of flooding, poor streets and poor transportation. And the problems including drought, floods, erosion, increases in salinity, and nitrogen are part of the concern of the James River at Richmond.
The site – Pocket Quarry is one of the places involved with all the issues mentioned above. The large quarry was once a part of the river, and is near one of the public housing – the Hillside Court. More than half of residents there are 17 and younger, with insufficient space to imagine, create, learn and even see nature around.

The design strategy is to repair the quarry and make it a new interpretive center for nearby communities and a hydrological connection to the community and James River. It has the ability to be a playground both for water and people.
To make it a water playground, the objectives here include flood control, quarry repair and community involvement.
For flood control, the strategy is to build berm landforms at the edge of quarry to encounter 2-year, 10-year and 25-year flood events, as well as using natural force – the prevailing wind to distribute the dredging material from James River to create a barrier for flood and a linear playground with changing mounds.

For quarry repair, it’s a process of time when plants conquer the site to break the big rock, to seed the ground, to grow up into different species in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, from grass to shrub, to tree. Plants can also purify the water from both James River and community and they can be gathered at the bottom of the quarry to make waterfalls, diving, public pools and flood water storage to create long term spaces for public imagination and public resources.
For community involvement, when the quarry is under repair and after repair, during normal time and different flood events, it could be a different “playground”. The process of phytoremediation could be a chance to deliver jobs for the local community since there will be much maintenance needed. After repair, the earth in the quarry will be good enough for planting big trees, flowery and fruitful shrubs, communities could harvest the food and celebrate the landscape together. With decks in different heights, people, especially the young, could dive or swim in the central pool inside the quarry based on water level which could be sensed in different flood events and normal time to tell wheather it's safe to dive or swim. And the big remains of the quarry is also a wonder land for people to observe the history of rock, to walk up and down, to stop and contemplate.

By providing space for water as well as communities, the quarry is a playground beyond for human.

Technical information

Area: about 43 ha;
Site: Richmond Pocket Quarry, Richmond, Virginia, USA