Savannah Eppley's Architectural Portfolio

Savannah Eppley University of Virginia School of Architecture Portfolio 2024

Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Contents Design Ecologies Restoring and Inhabiting the Salt Marsh Norfolk, Virginia

The Flamenco Greenway Center for the Research on Flamenco Music Cadiz, Spain

Oak Tree Middle School Environmental Middle School Charlottesville, Virginia

Drafting in the Veneto Vicenza, Italy

Campbell Hall Model Making University of Virginia

Art Projects

Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Restoring and Inhabiting the Salt Marsh UVA SoA ARCH 4020 Spring 2024 Studio: Design Ecologies in Norfolk, Virginia This studio was thesis research embodied in a thematic language of Design Ecologies: Architecture in the Age of the Evolving “Normal.” This thesis research was composed by asking: How do we rethink our relationship to each other and other species in the changing context represented by these words? How do we reimagine our sites as the ground for new infrastructural, cultural, and built ecologies at the interface between humans and the wild? These emergent realities require reimagining the architecture project understood at its most significant and inclusive scale.

My fascination with the coexistence of humans and animals in the urban landscape led me to the urban wetland city of Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia, a city with a population of approximately 235,000 people, is situated in a wetland environment that is grappling with current and future challenges such as sea level rise, flooding, and climate change. In this demanding context, my aim was not just to restore parts of the coastline, but to kindle a beacon of hope. The selected sites, underutilized waterfront property, hold the potential to be the catalyst for the environment and the future of Norfolk, transforming it back into a salt marsh. The discovery of these underused abandoned waterfront lots is not just a prototype language, but a potential solution for further use in Norfolk and other coastal cities grappling with climate change. This design implements a coexistence perspective. The animal species would be the prioritized characters in this restoration landscape, administering humans’ activity through observing the urban wilderness. This intentional concept inspires humans to engage in education and conservation. I identified six endangered and threatened salt marsh bird species that could inhabit the restored salt marsh environment.

The walkway system is intricately designed around specific wetland plant species, creating a curvilinear pathway that allows humans to immerse themselves in the wildlife experience throughout all the different segments of the salt marsh. The walkway is not just a path, but a platform for awareness. It is designed with interactive elements to create awareness of the endangered bird species, such as a bird screen system in the shallow marsh area, an observation tower to witness the scope of Norfolk from a bird’s perspective, and walkways connected to the floating wetlands. The design also includes spaces designated for human interaction with nature, such as areas for shelter, education, and eating. Moreover, the site is seamlessly connected to the existing learning barge through a waterfront dock that links to the shelter and parking lot with bus access.

Human Interaction on the Wetland with Bird Species 1

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Site Plan

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1300’ 2

Portfolio Savannah Eppley

LEGEND $9.76k - 32.9k $33k - 48.6k $48.6 - 63.4k $63.4k - 89.9k $90k +

Socio-Economic Map of Norfolk, VA

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4 miles

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Sea Level Rise Model of Norfolk, VA

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Elizabeth River Projects

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1. Ryan Resilience Lab

2. Lafayette River Restoration

3. Eastern Branch Restoration

4. Learning Barge

5. Paradise Creek Restoration

6. Money Point Restoration

Elizabeth River Trail: 10.5 miles

Pre-existing Elizabeth River Restoration Projects

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Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Learning Barge: Credit Crisman + Pertrus Architects Site

Existing Learning Barge Route with Site Addition Credit: Crisman + Pertus Architects

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Site B

Site A

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Site Analysis Diagrams

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Panorama View of Site A

Grass Lot on Site A

Parking Lot on Site A

Abandoned Docks on Site B

Pollution Dumb on Site B

Panorama View of Site B

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Why a Constructed Wetland?

1. Nutrient Uptake

2. UV Irradiation

Wetland plants use nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus to grow

Exposure to UV light helps to remove pathogens and breakdown organic pollutants

3. Sedimentation

4. Microbial Action

Wetland plants increase hydraulic resistance; solids drop out together with attached pollutants such as metals and nonsoluble phosphorus

The wetland plant root structure creates a large oxygen rich surface area for microbial biofilms.

These microbes break down organic pollutants.

Intertidal Recharge

Wetland Construction Research 9

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Approaches to Remove Contaminated Sediments

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Saltmarsh Development

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Urban Fringes

In heavily constrained areas a more engineered approach to restore where there are mudflats that meet hard defences (seawall) is to construct terraces of suitable elevation to enable saltmarsh colonization.

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley Arcadian Nelson Sparrow

King Rail

Clapper Rail

Ammospiza Nelsoni Subvirgatus

Rallus Elegans

Rallus Crepitans

The distinctive “Atlantic” or “Acadian” form of Nelson’s Sparrow is a subspecies of the Nelson Sparrow and has a tiny population, perhaps only 25,000 birds, and almost all of these nest in tidal marshes, which are gravely threatened by sea level rise. Historically, the destruction of both coastal marshland and of inland wetlands resulted in massive loss of habitat for this habitat specialist across its range.

King Rail populations have declined in all areas surveyed in North America, overall by an estimated 4.5% per year since 1966, indicating a cumulative decline of 90% over that period with the global population at 70,000 birds, therefore on the Watch List for declining populations. The IUCN classifies King Rail as a “Near Threatened” species. Long-term declines in populations are mostly related to the massive loss of wetlands across North America.

Clapper Rails can be common in saltmarshes, and have a secretive nature. Clapper Rails are threatened by habitat development and degradation, and high tides associated with storms. Sand deposition from storms may destroy marsh grasses, and this can affect Clapper Rail populations.

This species is considered as a Tier B class, threatned due to habitat lost and sea level rise.

Food Consumption

Food Consumption

Food Consumption

Blue Crab

Grasshopper

Moth

Ant

Fly

Beetle

Migration Map

Filder Crab

Leafhopper

Earwigs

Wolf Spider

Wasp

Filder Crab

Essential Plant Species

Grasshopper

Cricket

Dragonfly

Beetle

Migration Map

Frog

Katydids

Clams

Blue Crab

Essential Plant Species

Filder Crab

Fish Eggs

Minnows

Migration Map

Black Crappie

Cricket

Woodlice

Essential Plant Species

Smooth Cordgrass

Lamsquarter

Salt Marsh Bulrush

Narrow Leaved Cattail

Smooth Cordgrass

Narrow Leaved Cattail

Spartina Alterniflora

Chenopodium Album

Scirpus Robustus

Typha Angustifolia

Spartina Alterniflora

Typha Angustifolia

Smartweed

Switch Grass

Maidencane

Black Needle Rush

Salt Meadow Hay

Blunt Spikerush

Polygonum Punctatum

Panicum Virgatum

Panicum Hemitomon

Juncus Roemerianus

Spartina Patens

Eleocharis Obtusa

Winter Breeding

Breeding

Breeding

Year round

Year round

Year round

Sea Oxeye

Northern Wild Rice

Bulltongue Arrowhead

Giant Cutgrass

Big Cordgrass

Pickleweed

Borrichia Frutescens

Zizania Aquatica

Sagittaria Lancifolia

Zizaniopsis Miliacea

Spartina Cynosuroides

Pontederia Cordata

Salt Marsh Endangered Bird Species

American Black Duck (W)

Black Scoter (W) Melanitta Americana

Bufflehead (W) Bucephala albeola

Greater Yellowlegs (W)

Red Tail Hawk (YR)

Buteo jamaicensis

Prairie Warbler (N) Setephaga discolor

Tyrannus tyrannus

Glossy Ibis (S) Plegadis falcinellus

Snowy Egret (R)

Tringa melanoleuca

Bald Eagle (YR) Haiaeetus leucocephalus

Eastern Kingbird (N)

Anas rubripes

Short-eared Owl (W)

Northern Pintail (W)

Purple Sandpiper (W)

Red-Throat Loon (W)

Red- Headed Woodpecker (YR)

Tricolored Heron (YR)

Willow Flycatcher (N)

Anas acuta

Calidris maritima

Gavia Stellata

Melanerpes erythrocephalus

Egretta tricolor

Empidonax traillii

Least Tern (N) Sternula antillarum

Piping Plover (S) Charadrius melodus

Little Blue Heron (R)

Asio flammeus

Egretta caerulea

Osprey (R) Pandion haliaetus

Horned Grebe (W)

Northern Gannet (W)

Ruddy Turnstone (W)

American Woodcock (W)

American Oystercatcher (YR)

Northern Bobwhite (R)

Brown Thrasher (R)

Arenaria interpres

Scolopax minor

Haematopus palliates

Red Knot (M) Calidris canutus

Buff-breasted Sandpiper (T)

Morus bassanus

Seaside Sparrow (YR) Ammospiza maritima

Blue-winged Warbler (M)

Podiceps auritus

Calidris subruficollis

Colinus virginianus

Toxostoma rufum

Additional Norfolk Bird Species

Winters Year round

Vermivora cyanoptera

Breeds in area but does not winter Migrational Stop

Egretta thula

Irregular Occurance Year Round & Breeds

Black Rail

Coastal Swamp Sparrow

Saltmarsh Sparrow

Laterallus Jamaicensis

Melospiza Georgiana Nigrescens

Ammospiza Caudacuta

Black Rails are rare and declining estimation of a global breeding population of 52,000 and rates the species a 17 out of 20 in the Continental Concern Score, placing it on the Red Watch List, the group’s highest level of concern. Black Rails require such shallow water, they are highly susceptible to changes in water levels, whether from climate change, water diversion for agriculture, or the draining of wetlands for mosquito control.

The Coastal Plain Swamp Sparrow is morphologically distinct and subspecies of the Swamp Sparrow that is restricted to a narrowly defined habitat type, tidal marshes and geographically isolated within the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. This particular subspecies is facing extreme habitat loss due to sea level rise of the tidal marsh. Therefore the population is in rapid decline and considered a Tier A Priority salt marsh bird species.

Saltmarsh Sparrow populations are declining rapidly, estimated a decline of about 9% per year between 1998 and 2012, indicating an overall loss of 75% of the global population, and in danger of extinction within the next few decades. Among the species’ problems, sea level rise is the most difficult to address: the birds nest in vegetation that stands only inches above the water, and coastal development will make it difficult for saltmarsh habitat to move inland as sea levels rise.

Food Consumption

Food Consumption

Food Consumption

Weevil

Grasshopper

Ant

Diving Beetle

Earwig

Migration Map

Spider

Snail

Woodlice

Grasshopper

Essential Plant Species

Cricket

Bee

Blueberry Dragonfly

Damselflies Caterpillars

Migration Map

Ants

Ampid

Ampid

Beetle

Smooth Cordgrass

Black Needle Rush

Vervain

Swamp Dock

Spartina Alterniflora

Juncus Roemerianus

Verbena Hastata

Rumex Verticillatus

Salt Meadow Hay

Salt Grass

Smartweed

Switch Grass

Spartina Patens

Distichlis Spicata

Polygonum Punctatum

Panicum Virgatum

Beetle Click Beetle Leafhopper Moth Ladybug Weevil Butterfly

Fly

Tiger Beetle Rove Beetle

Essential Plant Species

Smooth Cordgrass

Black Needle Rush

Spartina Alterniflora

Juncus Roemerianus

Salt-Marsh Bulrush

Salt Grass

Scirpus Robustus

Distichlis Spicata

Big Cordgrass

Northern Wild Rice

Spartina Cynosuroides

Zizania Aquatica

Breeding

Breeding

Year round

Year round

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Grasshopper

Summers

Winter

Winter Breeding

Cricket

Migration Map

Essential Plant Species

Brown Pelican (R) Pelecanus occidentalis

Chairmakers Bulrush

Pickleweed

Woolgrass

Tussock Edge

Schoenoplectus Americanus

Pontederia Cordata

Scirpus Cyperinus

Carex Stricta

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Open Water (Aquatic Bed)

Deep Marsh

Shallow Marsh

(Emergent)

(Emergent)

Wet Meadow

Shrub Wetland

Forested Wetland

Upland Buffer

Hydric Soil

Hydric Soil

Non- Hydric Soil

Water Depth 0” - 6”

Water Depth 6” - 18”

Water Depth 18” - 3’

Water Depth 3’ - 7’

Yellow Water Lily

White Water Lily

Smooth Cordgrass

Black Needle Rush

Salt Marsh Bulrush

Maidencane

Vervain

Woolgrass

Switch Grass

Swamp Dock

Sweet Pepperbush

Spicebush

White Pine

Eastern Hemlock

Wild Celery

Pond Weeds

Giant Cutgrass

Big Cordgrass

Bulltongue Arrowhead

Pickleweed

Salt Grass

Narrow Leaved Cattail

Sea Oxeye

Lamsquarter

Red Maple

Green Ash

Gray Birch

Gray Dogwood

Saltmarsh mallow

Arrow Arum

Chairmakers Bulrush

Smartweed

Salt Meadow Hay

Groundsel Tree

Salt Marsh Aster

Marsh Orach

Black Ash

Black Gum

Sweet Fern

Shadblow Serviceberry

Northern Wild Rice

Tussock Edge

Seaside Goldenrod

Marsh Elder

Wax Myrtle

Swamp White Oak

Bald Cypress

Blunt Spikerush

Glasswort

Saltwort

Bladderwrack

Wetland Cross Section with Plant Species

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Site Elevation

Shelter Section

Key: 1. Learning Barge Dock 2. Shelter 3. Eating Area 4. Observation Tower 5. Floating Wetlands

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Shelter Plan

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60’

Wetland A Site Plan

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

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600’

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Observation Tower Plan 0’ 15

50’

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Observation Tower Section 16

Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Eating Area Section

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Studio Projects Design Ecologies

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Stepped Nature Walkway Section

Stepped Nature Walkway Plan 19

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60’

Studio Projects Design Ecologies

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Key: 1. Bird Screening 2. Stepped Seating 3. Floating Wetlands 4. Stepped Nature Walkway 5. Existing Wetland Park

Wetland B Site Plan

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600’ 20

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Human Interaction on a Floating Wetland

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Studio Projects Design Ecologies

Floating Dock Perspective

Walkway Perspective

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

The Flamenco Greenway UVA SoA ARCH 4010 Fall 2023 Studio: Center for the Research on Flamenco Music in Cadiz, Spain The studio is based on La Vina neighborhood, and the program is the Center for the Research on Flamenco Music. The site is located in the back of the old eighteen century Hospice of the city recently purchased by the University of Cadiz to extend their urban campus. The Center for the Research on Flamenco Music is associated to the University and includes a small-scale auditorium, recording studios, research offices, library, and exhibition and events rooms. Cadiz is a coastal city of asphalt and concrete streets with bright red roofs lacking outdoor and connective green space. Therefore, I implemented the design of an urban intervention that creates an uninterrupted landscape from the Park Genoves, located in northwest Cadiz on the coast, to the designated eighteen-century Hospice site.

This design reestablishes Cadiz’s road map of extensive concrete and parking into a roadway embellished with a tree canopy and sea views. Pushing parking below ground level connects to the existing underground parking to Park Genoves. This allows the landscape to be reconnected to the sea and flourish in an open market space encompassed with the language of trees and vegetation.The linear greenway continues from the open market area to the Hospice site, with a pedestrian Bridgeway over the primary road allowing the greenway to circulate. The linear intervention interplays a meander that brings the experience on the roof line that continues the green space encompassed with an artificial topography that transmits the space free of movement and exploration. The meander on the roof line allows direct access into the existing building and frames to the sea.

The arrangement of the artificial topography designates the formation and programmatic spaces to the ground floor below. The ground floor is negotiated into organic forms programmed with spaces that allow for movement, education, and performance for the culture of flamenco dance.The overall idea of this project is to grow green space into the urban fabric of Cadiz, allowing open spaces for the public and flamenco culture to flourish and grow.

Roof Top Collage 23

Floorplan

GROUND FLOOR

1/164” = 1’

Studio Projects The Flamenco Greenway

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50’ 24

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Model Photos 25

Studio Projects The Flamenco Greenway

Site Plan establishing Coastal Greenway

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40’ 26

Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Transversal Urban Section

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Studio Projects The Flamenco Greenway

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Roof Top Collage

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Studio Projects The Flamenco Greenway

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Horizontal Urban Section

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Studio Projects The Flamenco Greenway

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Oak Tree Middle School UVA SoA ARCH 3020 Spring 2023 Studio: Middle School Program in Albemarle County, Virginia This design embraces a fundamental component of a grided tree system throughout the entire site, implementing trees as apart of the architecture, playscape, and education of the students. These biophilic tree design acts as key components to the structural composition and sensational experience of the school buildings. The biophilic trees design informs a composition in wrapping glass boxes to be concealed into the gridded forest, to create the language of fluidity in the student experience of inside and outside. These biophilic trees allow the student to be inside yet still under the tree canopy. This biophilic tree canopy reposes in a weaving system to encompass the obscurity of light from the organic sky lights, representing the movement of water systems.

This school takes fundamental core on the library and cafeteria with immense biophilic trees than to smaller calibration of biophilic trees in the classrooms. The cafeteria acts as a kitchen learning centers adjacent to the co-existing community gardens. As students will engage withw the already existing community gardens that extend beyond the site boundaries, allowing students to rehabilitate the gardens to function not only better for the community but ultimately to provide supplement to a culinary living environment.

The overall digression of this building will allow students to be diffused in nature, increasing educational time spent outside.This campus extends to exisiting community gardens and playscape allowing the campus to create an education embraced by a river ecology. As the this design breaks the traditional enclosed hallway space to be covered passageways along side the river.

Program Diagram 33

Experiential View of Biophilic Tree Elements

Studio Project Oak Middle School

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Site Plan with Gridded Tree Nursery

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Studio Project Oak Middle School

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32’

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Ground Floor Library Floorplans

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2nd F

Floor

Studio Project Oak Middle School

3rd Floor 0’

32’

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Library Section

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Studio Project Oak Middle School

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Ground Floor Cafe Floorplans

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2nd F

Floor

Studio Project Oak Middle School

3rd Floor 0’

32’

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Cafe Section

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Studio Project Oak Middle School

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Collage of Covered Passageways connecting Buildings

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Studio Project Oak Middle School

Collage of Covered Passageway with Tree Hollows

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Site Model using Natural Resources from Site

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Studio Project Oak Middle School

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

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Fondazione Querini Stampalia Venice, Italy

Villa Piovene Por Vicenza, Italy

Villa Grazzotti Grimani Vicenza, Italy

Museum Civici E Padua, Italy

Studio Projects Drafting in the Veneto

rto

Arco Delle Scalette Vicenza, Italy

Eremitani

Univerisity of Padua Botanical Gardens Padua, Italy 50

Portfolio Savannah Eppley

Front View of Campbell Hall Model

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Studio Projects Campbell Hall Model

Coffer Ceiling View of Campbell Hall Model

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Portfolio Savannah Eppley

The Facade of Fall Book

Ceramic Candle Holder 53

Studio Projects Art Projects

Plant Ceramic Plates

Outdoor Study Blanket Art Installation 54