High style: At home with designer Chris Coggins

While attending the New York School of Interior Design, designer Chris Coggins embarked on an independent project: review 40 famous houses in 40 days. “I visited significant homes all along the East Coast,” says Coggins, “so I experienced a full range of styles.” But it was Biltmore, the Gilded Age estate in Asheville, North Carolina, […]

Bigger size, bigger style: Refreshing how Scarpa looks —and works

There are a few iconic local retailers in Charlottesville, and Amy Gardner’s store, Scarpa, is one of them. The women’s boutique—which started out selling shoes nearly 23 years ago and recently expanded into clothing—has been a mainstay in the north wing of Barracks Road Shopping Center, and in the Charlottesville imagination, as a bastion of […]

In studio: A look at last semester’s review at UVA’s School of Architecture

Previously in this column, we’ve explored a graduate student’s perspective on architecture’s trajectory—one that leverages architects’ unique skill sets to address, through the built environment, uncertainties facing society today. This semester at UVA engaged this topic directly through school-wide discussions facilitated by the biennial Woltz Symposium and design courses. The Woltz Symposium, a two-day event […]

December Abode: On stands now!

This month’s Abode takes a peek inside a Lewis and Clark Building condo, a closer look at Montpelier’s Claude Moore Hall, a critical eye toward public spaces and more. Here’s what you’ll find: Architect Bob Anderson‘s etched inspiration. Montpelier’s Claude Moore Hall makes a modern statement. The upsides of heated flooring. Do public spaces affect […]

Where the sidewalk ends: How public spaces affect private lives

In urban design, decisions about road lanes, sidewalk widths and shade trees affect the rhythm of use in outdoor spaces—transportation and commerce, social activity, traffic, safety, recreation and even public health are determined by these choices. Urban planners have long been using the catchphrase “live, work, play” to describe an idyllic mixture of programming, but […]