Students design community-centered, flood-resilient landscapes on Virginia’s coast
Through design, research, and community engagement, landscape architecture students in the School of Design reimagined how coastal landscapes can adapt to rising water and evolving needs.
What if we could design with water, rather than against it?
To ensure that coastal communities remain resilient and adaptive in the face of environmental change, landscape architecture students in the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design envisioned innovative landscape remodeling for the cities of Virginia Beach and Hampton.
Their ideas and resulting designs were the focus of the fall Landscape Design and Planning Studio, a course for fifth-year undergraduates and master’s degree students that represents a long-standing collaboration between academia, professional practice, and local government.
For over seven years, students and faculty from this studio have partnered with representatives from the cities of Virginia Beach and Hampton, Wetlands Watch, a local nonprofit, and WPL Landscape Architecture, a landscape architecture, surveying, and site engineering firm led by principal and Billy Almond '78.
While Virginia Beach and Hampton are home to vibrant communities, rich history, and natural treasures, their location comes with environmental challenges such as coastal erosion and regional flooding.
Seeking to balance functional, aesthetic, social, and economic considerations, the students set out to address the region’s growing concerns about how these communities interact with rising sea levels.
Exploring the sites and gaining field experience
During the fall semester, students developed two design proposals for new public spaces on Virginia’s coast: The first was located east of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach and the second was in the Paula Maria Village neighborhood in Hampton.
For both projects, students emphasized the importance of social cohesion by fostering connections and collaboration between younger and older generations and exploring how each could support the other.
“Landscape is no longer about just the aesthetic. It is very much a dynamic place of experimentation and evolving social relationships,” said Irene Curulli, associate professor of practice in the School of Design.
To gain a real feel for the projects and their potential impact on residents, the students started the semester with a three-day field trip to visit both sites.
“We paid close attention to the water and how it flows and ponds on the site,” said Jackson Kirsch, a fifth-year landscape architecture student. “Understanding how it interacts within the landscape creates the framework for our designs. There were also local aspects we had to work with, mainly involving municipal facility design and community planning.”
When the students returned to Blacksburg, they spent a day discussing the sites and sharing their individual observations and insights about the projects. Afterward, they formed groups, began developing plans, and held regular meetings with city officials and specialists throughout the semester.
The students focused on the Virginia Beach project until mid-October. Then, they turned their attention to the Hampton site for the rest of the term.
Serving communities with hands-on solutions
The ongoing collaboration between the studio participants and coastal residents exemplifies Virginia Tech’s commitment to Ut Prosim (That I May Serve) through design and education that directly involves and benefits Virginia communities.
“This initiative not only strengthens Virginia Tech’s regional partnerships but also showcases the transformative potential of landscape architecture in addressing real-world challenges,” Curulli said.
“Through landscape architecture, planners reinforce local identity and strengthen the sense of place, honoring the deep connections residents have to their homes and fostering a meaningful appropriation of space grounded in respect and care. At the same time, they enhance ecological performance and aesthetic quality, mitigating flood impacts, while creating welcoming, inclusive, and resilient public landscapes for all.”
This collaborative approach also gives students hands-on experience in applied research and interdisciplinary problem-solving.
“Landscape architecture is a very diverse field that allows you to study many design, natural, and civic processes,” Kirsch said. “This allows us to communicate and workshop ideas based on the research we conduct for these projects. It makes us de facto leaders who are able to organize and mediate others who can contribute to a project in their own way.”
Working with community members, many of whom are long-time residents, taught students the importance of staging these changes to the landscape in ways that did not displace the people living there.
They also gained experience collaborating with communities, experts, and peers, and presenting when they shared their final plans with stakeholders invested in the projects’ outcomes.
Designing with water to build resilience
In addition to learning the importance of keeping community members well-informed and considering their interests during the development process, students also learned the significance of planning in relation to water.
“By designing with water rather than against it, these projects advance innovative solutions for managing watershed systems, protecting shorelines, and ensuring that coastal communities remain resilient and adaptive in the face of environmental change,” Curulli said.
Because water is constantly a significant factor in landscape design and architecture — especially on the coast — it is important for landscape architects to adapt living spaces and integrate both natural and engineered systems within their designs.
Kirsch and his group worked on the Paula Maria Village project. They conceptualized a seven-layer system of defense operating across multiple scales of water movement, from everyday rainfall to seasonal storms and tidal flooding. Behind a buffer zone, layers of storage, distribution, diversion, and detention work together with protective and sheltering elements to safeguard the community while fostering a cultural shift in how it engages with the rhythms of the terrain.
Equally important is considering the community’s needs when planning. A second team proposed a multi-scalar flood infrastructure network for vulnerable communities, with intentional meeting points designed to promote the physical well-being of elderly residents and encourage interaction among neighbors.
“I am invested in coastal resiliency because I grew up in Hampton Roads,” said Kirsch, the 2024-25 recipient of the Sigma Lambda Alpha National Landscape Architecture Honor Society scholarship. “I'm glad I was able to learn how to help communities affected by sea-level rise because I've seen it plenty firsthand.”
The concepts developed and presented in this studio not only guide landscape architects and city planners in the Hampton Roads area but also serve as inspiration for future projects, building on pre-existing knowledge in the field of landscape architecture.
Written by Ashley Falat, a senior communications major
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