Way-Rail

Our lost site lives in the Star Hill Neighborhood of Charlottesville, Virginia. The community received its name from a group of wealthy Black families (the Stars’) that called the small neighborhood home (O’Hare). In the past decade, Star Hill has faced a significant decrease in its Black population, as well as a drop in home ownership and increase in renters. What was once a thriving neighborhood for Black owned businesses and homeowners was hindered, in part, by the urban renewal of the 1960’s (“Starr Hill:Galvin Architects).

Star Hill has decades worth of history and culture that lies in its landscape, the preservation and amplification of these stories are some of the most important issues to the people of the community. Providing public and green space, and utilizing on-site materials, may be the key to newfound connectivity between people and place in a neighbourhood still at risk of being lost to the woes of gentrification and urban renewal completely.