January 2010: Spare rooms
Loes van Riel is an artist, and at her day job, she sells jewelry at the Downtown store Angelo. It’s somehow unsurprising, then, to find that in her studio at home, her current materials—seedpods, maple leaves, dried orchid flowers—are arranged and appreciated just like gems. The setting certainly enhances the effect. Van Riel and [...]
January 2010: The Hays-Ewing house sets a modern trend in Woolen Mills
“There are people who have been here for 60 or 70 years,” says Chris Hays. “Here” is Woolen Mills, the eastern Charlottesville neighborhood he can see from the high-ceilinged living area of his house. This part of town grew up somewhat separate from the rest of Charlottesville, centered around the mill in its name. It [...]
Pairings we'll miss
Sure, you can still smoke. But can you smoke as the waiter clears your plate, blowing rings over that little dish of creamers that only exists in restaurants? Nope. An era has ended. And along with it, some classic pairings of local menu items with their tobacco-based soulmates. Here are five we’ll miss. • [...]
Foodies, take a class from our kitchen columnist!
Couldn’t cook a bunch of kale to save your life? Sign up for the eight-week "Local Food for Thought" course.
All about the day I longed for an SUV
The big snow has made me feel a renewed connection to my fellow human beings. Yes, it’s true!
Why the Pope is going eco, and other Green Reads
Solar stickers! Virginia’s embarrassments! Inaccurate menus!
Greg Kelly steers the city’s freshest art space
Greg Kelly takes his time making coffee in a silver pot in his little Belmont house. He’s talking about what it means to be an artist, something that had been on his mind in the early part of this decade, after he’d landed in Batesville with a newly minted education in studio art. “I didn’t [...]
Yep, you can recycle corks and CFLs
From the every-little-bit helps department, a couple of new, small recycling programs.
NEW C-VILLE COVER STORY: Greg Kelly steers the city’s freshest art space
This week’s cover story focuses on Greg Kelly: the affable, beloved director of The Bridge/Progressive Arts Initiative
To rejoice or not about Biscuit Run?
When I first heard that 3,100 houses may not be built after all at Biscuit Run, I said, "This is like a Christmas present."
Eat, drink, and watch a film on mountaintop removal
This Wednesday and Thursday, Vinegar Hill is showing the new documentary Coal Country.
Wendell Berry behind the bully pulpit
The man is a poet, but he is not given to subtlety when he talks about certain issues.
December 2009: Bob Sweeney's life in a World Heritage Site
The first residents of Pavilion VI on the UVA Lawn were a 26-year-old professor of mathematics and his wife, transplanted in the mid-1820s from Cambridge, England. Chastened by the Virginia summers, they left after only two years. The pavilion is undoubtedly more comfortable for its current occupants—Bob and Peg Sweeney—though the demands of a semi-public [...]
December ABODE gets you into the factory
It’s the last issue of a year in which we’ve expanded and deepened our coverage of green building and green living, so I think you’ll be interested.
Green Reads with your turkeycran sandwich
Measuring wind with your phone, Sesame Street on climate change, and some serious green news, too.
RWSA board adopts schedule for water supply plan
The state has given permission for the dams at Ragged Mountain to continue operating through May.
Design Marathon goodies: musical roof and more
The CCDC exhibit shows off marathon projects and gives behind-the-scenes glimpses.
Planning Commission endorses wind turbines despite viewshed impacts
For some people, the sight of a small wind turbine merrily turning in the breeze behind a house or business is a beautiful thing. After all, a turbine represents that much less energy that must be produced by, say, burning coal. Yet others may find the structures unsightly, especially in contrast to a bucolic Albemarle [...]
Wind turbines may green Albemarle energy, and alter its views
Planning Commissioners approved a proposal to allow small wind turbines in the county.
NEW C-VILLE COVER STORY: Albemarle’s walkability goals are slow to gain a foothold
According to the Neighborhood Model of Albemarle County, it is an important goal that residents
Studying what walkers need
Studying what walkers need Do big cities have anything to teach towns the size of Charlottesville, or for that matter, suburban areas like those in Albemarle, about creating safe places for pedestrians? A new report suggests that development patterns are the key to walkability, so the success of larger urban areas may well hold lessons [...]
Albemarle's walkability goals are slow to gain a foothold
READ MORE • Click here for more information on pedestrian safety. On the outer fringes of Hollymead Town Center, at the corner of Grand Forks Boulevard and Perseco Lane, there is a townhouse for rent. It’s one of four units in a lonely building, stranded among the raw sites of its as-yet-unbuilt siblings. On September [...]
Can Albemarle and other governments make development better?
Today in C-VILLE, the feature story looks at Albemarle County’s Neighborhood Model. Other localities, too, have struggled with smart growth.