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Contrast this to the feeling you might get while standing in front of the Courthouse Downtown, or on North Campus near Broad Street in Athens. The buildings were intentionally placed close to the street and sidewalk and in proximity to one another in order to physically define the space, which tends to make the place both memorable and lovable. Regardless of the size of the town or the buildings that shape it, spatial enclosure is essential to creating a successful places. It is part of the reason why we all love traditional small towns.

 

 

Axial Relationships

 

The main concept of the urban design proposal clarifies and creates better cohesion between the two crossing axes that form downtown Watkinsville—the commercial axis of Main Street and the historic civic axis that existed between the Oconee County Courthouse and the Watkinsville schools at the end of School Street and overlooking Rocket Field.

The Civic Green

The location of Rocket Field within the heart of the city is highly attractive for the community; however, the park itself is problematic in several ways, including its physical and visual separation from Main Street, its lack of spatial enclosure due to the large width of the park and the nature of the surrounding one-story houses and buildings, and its prevention of free accessibility into the park by the chain-link fence, steep slopes, and drainage ditches surrounding it.

 

 

Spatial Containment

 

When standing in the parking lot of one of the stores on Epps Bridge Parkway, one merely gets the sense of being in the midst of a large tract of land, with cars all around, and buildings distantly located from one another with no particular order. One typically does not enjoy being in such an environment. 

 

 

Existing Conditions. The existing buildings in light gray and existing civic buildings in light red are shown above. 

The proposed buildings in dark gray are designed to work with the existing buildings in light gray to have continuous street frontage and provide spatial definition to the Watkinsville Civic Green. The Courthouse (in pink, at left), Eagle Tavern (in pink, at center-left), and proposed Municipal Hall (in red, at right) strengthen the historic civic axis. 

In order to improve the more obvious commercial axis, a series of infill opportunities are presented that would promote a more continuous and consistent streetscape on Main Street between Barnett Shoals Road and Experiment Station Road. The civic axis is more subtle currently, but can be reinforced by forming a continuous greenspace between the Courthouse and the proposed Municipal Hall adjacent to the historic school campus. This new public space would have the feel of traditional small town squares, but its longer shape, like that of the green at North Campus, would be a unique feature for Watkinsville. 

 

 

Pedestrian Activity

 

To create a truly pedestrian-friendly environment where businesses and shops can thrive, there should be continuous frontage where possible to stitch together the street with new buildings designed and scaled appropriately to fit within the historic core. This means that not only could private landowners improve their properties (thus increasing the value), but that the Main Street churches could partner with private developers to redevelop their parking lots, providing them with potential for additional revenue while meeting the parking needs of parishioners.

 

 

 

New buildings along Main Street create continuous frontage and a more pleasant pedestrian environment. Street trees and on-street parking help to slow traffic through the Downtown area. 

Narrow Streets 

 

In Watkinsville, the existing narrow streets do not allow for on-street parking, which necessitates large off-street parking lots, breaking the continuous street frontage in places and weakening the pedestrian environment.

 

Streets can be upgraded over time within existing rights-of-way with sidewalks that are shielded from traffic lanes by on-street parking and planting strips with street trees and other landscaping elements. These upgrades will reinforce the hierarchy of existing streets and eventually lead to a more consistent street network and a safer pedestrian environment. 

 

Additionally, to better disperse traffic, new streets can be added to the existing network following the logic of the established grid. Individual property owners can take advantage of the new street frontage by further subdividing their lots to sell or develop themselves.

New Buildings

 

The images show a mix of uses and a variety of housing types within buildings commonly found in traditional towns and neighborhoods. This variety increases the number of options for people of every profession and stage of life to live together in the same community, as was commonplace in small towns prior to the 1950s. For instance, a detached single-family house can hold one family, and next door, a similarly sized house can be discreetly divided into two or three units to accommodate single professionals or married couples without children. The school teacher, doctor, small business owner, policeman, and retiree can all live in the same town or even on the same street and still have housing units that are appropriate to their surroundings.

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