LAE students present community designs to White Springs
2012
Landscape architecture students are bringing the community of White Springs together with their designs.
Students enrolled in the landscape architecture department’s Site Planning and Design studio recently unveiled their proposed revitalization of the town’s historic Carver neighborhood.
The semester-long design project titled a “New Florida Community” was presented to the mayor, council officers and community members of White Springs in December.
A “New Florida Community” challenges traditional planned community models common throughout the state of Florida, Thompson said.
“The concept seeks to create an inclusive new community that challenges the boundaries of age, economic status and race,” he said. “It’s one-part Chautauqua and one-part Elderhostel, tempered by the projects and practices we saw during the semester’s week-long field trip to Seattle and Vancouver, informed by the case study investigations the students did of the Green City of Hagaby, Sweden, and influenced by White Spring’s unique natural setting along the banks of the Suwannee River in north Florida.”
The final outcome of the project resulted in sixteen unique design concepts which include a connected transportation network, mixed-housing types, intergenerational community spaces and a generous system of connected greenways, parks and open spaces enveloping a charter school and community center at its core.