Stantonsburg Station: Designing a Place for Local Community
Partnered with the Town of Stantonsburg, North Carolina, students from two PLAN courses (PLAN3021: Planning Technique and PLAN3041: Computer Applications in Planning; Misun Hur, Ph.D., the instructor for both classes) have worked on the project designing the Stantonsburg Seal Building site in Stantonsburg, NC.
The Applewhite Building in the 1800s was demolished in 2018, leaving the building façade as it appeared in the town’s Seal. Our Stantonsburg Seal Building site transformation project had three objectives.
- To gather the community’s vision for the Seal Building site.
- To provide plans for the site to improve future downtown development and its cultural significance to the residents and business owners.
- To visualize place-making project ideas for the Seal Building site.
Final report (click to view)
The Final Report summarizes the secondary data analysis of the town (U.S. Census), the charrette, and the community survey. The findings provided the foundations for the design. Case studies framed the critical concepts for the site’s design: Pop-up and Temporary space, community gathering place, and local sustainable ownership.
Pop-up and Temporal Space is the primary theme. What separates a pop-up environment from any other structure is its temporariness, which in turn allows the environments to be affordable, cost-effective, flexible, reversible, and simple to construct. Staying affordable is a key to their success. Utilization of container boxes offers a unique and inexpensive way to build small spaces for a variety of businesses and functions. Retails can be incubated until their entire establishment. The community gathering places allow people to socialize, enjoy their time, and connect. A place that provides a variety of options for socialization is what we hope to establish on the site. Local, sustainable ownership is another important aspect of cultivating a sustainable sense of community.
Based on the fundamental framework, we propose several design ideas—coffee shop/bakery, bar, brewery, boutique, and consignment store as temporal structures, and (multi-use) flex space, farmer’s market, food truck park, and community garden as open space.
A special acknowledgment to Ms. Coley Rhodes, Mayor, Town of Stantonsburg, NC; Mr. Brian Hawley, Town Manager, Town of Stantonsburg, NC; Ms. Betsy Kane, Senior Regional Planner, Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments; Mr. Ben Farmer, Economic Development Planner, Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments; Mr. Lee Padrick, Chief Economic Development Planner, Dept. Of Commerce, NC.
Students involved include Mary Archibald, Tayler Barlett, Ben Bergman, Riley Jakob, Nicholas Johnson, Caramia Landis, Samuel Miles, Noah Mills, Makayla Selby, Tamia Slye, Chase Warner, Kaylie Williams, Tanner Hayslette, and Cameron Brown. In addition, Gerald Reiling from J.H. Rose High School volunteered in case studies.