Context Drives Design Solutions - The project’s location, site history, modes of transportation and traditional and current uses are important factors in the design process.
The main artery of Danville is U.S. Highway Route 2; in a sense, the community’s Main Street. Some of New England’s most unspoiled and spectacular scenery can be viewed from Route 2 in Vermont as one approaches Danville from either direction.
Located approximately 30 miles north of Montpelier, the state capital, Danville’s distinctive Town Hall, school, general store, churches and village Green, seen against the panorama of the White Mountains in neighboring New Hampshire, represent the physical embodiment of those visual cues that have come to signify “rural New England village”.
In New England, the village Green, or "common", tells a story of the community. Danville Green and its central common situated at 1341 feet above sea level command a broad view of the Northeast Highlands of Vermont, with long distant views to the White Mountain massif, and the peaks of the Presidential Range.
In 1937, The American Guide Series on Vermont, a Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration, described the community and its common this way:
"Danville ... was settled in 1784. Danville Green, as the village is locally called, lies along the slope of a high airy plateau commanding views of the White Mountains, and is a resort for hay-fever sufferers. The tree-shaded common, with its bandstand and Civil War Monument, was in early times the scene of June Training Day celebrations."
The history, Village in the Hills, by Susannah Clifford, tracks the evolution of Danville Green as a cultural and commercial center for the town, from the early 1790s when artisans began locating there and continuing through the designation of Danville as Caledonia County seat in 1796. The physical layout of the common had already begun to take shape, as noted by Clifford:
"By the early 1800s Danville had roads radiating out in all directions from the new courthouse on Danville Green."
Danville continued to grow in prominence with political and commercial activity focused in the village growing up around the Green. The Danville Village Improvement Society was formed to beautify the town in 1896 and the following year an "elegant stone watering trough", still present in the park today and one of the focal points of the planned enhancement of the Green, was placed near the Pope Library. During this period the Society installed street lamps and planted rows of shade trees on the common and along roads leading to it.
This vision, along with the cultural integrity of the Green’s historic significance is reflected in design elements of the Danville Project.
The wide range of architectural styles that can be viewed within the Danville Historical District provides further evidence that change, adaptation of use and evolution of appearance have been a constant and natural force in the Village since its founding.
Photographs, maps, paintings and drawings of Danville preserved at the Danville Historical Society bear witness to enormous changes in the size, configuration, appearance, usage and character of the village Green over four centuries. At times, alternately heavily or sparsely treed, fenced or open, segmented or whole, bisected by a single road or divided by as many as four, its physical appearance has changed dramatically. The Green has evolved to suit community needs in an identifiable and predictably linear fashion.
Today, the people of Danville are responding to a unique opportunity to revitalize the Green not only to meet their immediate needs, but also to anticipate and address the needs of generations to come, and to reassert the identity of this important community resource.
Between West Danville and Danville, the road [US Highway Route 2] crosses the Danville Moraine, one of the largest and best developed in New England. (A moraine is rock massed with gravel, sand, and clay and carried and deposited directly by a glacier). Danville is about in the middle of the moraine belt, which extends southward 30 miles to Goose Green, northward 20 miles to a point 2.5 miles west of Glover. Recognize moraines by their naturally hummocky topography, stony fields, and in many cases by manbuilt stone fences that divide farmers’ fields. - Source: Roadside Geology of Vermont and New Hampshire