Professor of Architecture Georgia Bizios, interns Katie Wakeford and Jonathan Hindman, and landscape architecture graduate student Karen Creech presented design recommendations for the future development of Kure Beach to the Town Council and community members on Friday, October 30. Follow this link to see television coverage of the event:
http://wwaytv3.com/video/nc_state_students_make_plans_revitalize_kure_beach/11
The goals of this project are to understand the issues for the development of Kure Beach’s downtown core, to use the process as a forum for discussion between community constituents, and to suggest design solutions for the future.
Public Spaces for Public Life
Our analysis suggests Kure Beach is unique because of its potential to create strong public spaces. Existing assets include magnificent beaches with many public access points, a beach boardwalk, a public park (under development), and wide avenues. Kure Beach can capitalize on the number and variety of public spaces to develop a desirable public identity.
As part of this agenda, Kure Beach must provide the public spaces with well-designed, functional, and aesthetically-pleasing infrastructure to create a strong, inviting identity. In addition to infrastructure, there is need to increase programming of special events in the public spaces to strengthen the public identity, attract visitors on a regular basis, and support cultural life and commerce.
As the community invests time, effort, and capital in the public infrastructure and programming, private enterprise will be inspired to follow suit. Civic leadership will be a pump prime for private investment. Outstanding design of public spaces will set the example of excellence.
Design Recommendations
Through our research and design studies, five important categories of design recommendations emerged.
- Circulation and Parking
- Beach Access
- Kure Beach Plaza
- Other Street Types
- Branding
Within each of these categories are strategies and concepts for enhancing the future development of Kure Beach. Investment in these areas of Kure Beach’s public spaces will enrich the public life of residents and visitors. The design recommendations will work collectively to make Kure Beach an attractive and inspiring community. The overall goals are to:
- Improve the public spaces to create a continuous pedestrian-friendly character with efficient access to parking.
- Enhance convenience and public accessibility to the beach and ocean.
- Promote the development of an identifiable downtown center filled with pedestrian-friendly, economically-viable activity.
- Improve the quality of the physical environment in public spaces to create a high level of expectation for the quality of downtown development.
- Emphasize the distinctiveness and interconnectivity of Kure Beach’s public spaces.
- Sponsor arts, cultural, and other special events to appeal to residents and visitors.
- Adopt sustainable, energy- efficient strategies, processes, and materials for the development and branding of the public spaces.
We believe Kure Beach has a bright future with enormous potentials for rich development that will meet the needs of residents and visitors alike. We expect the next steps will be to continue the discussions in order to reach community consensus about priorities, fundraising, and project phasing and to seek the services of licensed professionals who bring these initial ideas to fruition through design development.
NC State Project Team:
Professor Georgia Bizios, FAIA
Katie Wakeford, Intern Architect, Adjunct Faculty
Jonathan Hindman, Intern Architect
Karen Creech, Landscape Arch. Graduate Student
Stephanie Greene, Architecture Graduate Student
NC State Architecture Studio, Summer 2009:
Professor Paul Battaglia
Leslie Bloem
Karen Creech
Geoffrey Diamond
Christopher Friend
Jitka Kasparkova
Joshua Padgett
David Skoog
Brian Thompson
Keith Wales
Dustin Weisenburger
Sophia-Ann Williams