University of Richmond | Boatwright Library Precinct

The University of Richmond has been likened to a garden in the woods. Its stylized brick-Gothic architecture has a jewel-like quality set amidst stands of loblolly pines and sprinkled across a rolling piedmont landscape. The University is currently renovating its iconic Boatwright Library to make it a more useful hub for both student life and academic research. In addition to a new gallery and an enlarged café, the landscapes surrounding the library are being reshaped to promote student gathering. New walkways and landscape connections improve accessibility and navigation, while a transformed hillside reorients the campus around Westhampton Lake, an important but neglected feature at the heart of the campus. Fixed seat walls and regraded lawns create an all-season south-facing “campus beach” overlooking the lake, while changes to the vehicular drives enable the gradual pedestrianization of the precinct. New plantings and working stormwater management landscapes filter runoff while restoring the pastoral character that once marked this lakeside setting. On the opposite side of the library, a service yard is being transformed into a sylvan grove with fixed seating on a stone outcrop amphitheater and new walkways help students navigate an accessible route between the elevated quadrangle nearby and the Library’s first floor entry.