A Landmark Park on the Mississippi River

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Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee offers respite whereas reflecting on the lengthy historical past of racial injustice.

As soon as a metropolis dump on the Mississippi waterfront, Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee, is now a landmark park. The design offers downtown Memphis with a vacation spot playground, water options, hammocks, artwork installations, new climate-adaptive bushes and native shrubs, and a restored soil system. Designed by SCAPE and Studio Gang on behalf of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, the 31-acre park additionally features a pollinator lab with a studying curriculum developed by the panorama architects. The 2 corporations earned a Honor Award within the Common Design class.

A photograph of a sculpture of Tom Lee at Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee
Courtesy Church Well being.

The park honors a Black Memphian who saved 32 folks from drowning in 1925—despite the fact that he couldn’t swim and was risking his personal life. The design for the park acknowledges Lee’s generosity whereas inviting guests to mirror on a bigger story of racial injustice. One public artwork set up incorporates 32 thrones representing the lives Lee saved. The panorama architects hyperlink Lee’s heroic efforts to up to date occasions, as the cover on the riverside is devoted to Tyre Nichols, a Black man killed by police in 2023. The jury known as this challenge a “nice public house for the group, with glorious integration of supplies, plantings, and context to type quite a lot of areas.”

A photograph of Tom Lee Park on the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee
A view of Tom Lee Park on the Mississippi River. Courtesy of Connor Ryan.
A photograph of men playing basketball at Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee
The basketball courts at Tom Lee Park. Courtesy Brad Howe.

SCAPE Panorama Structure DPC,
New York Metropolis, and Studio Gang, Chicago

Consumer: Memphis River Parks Partnership

See extra of the challenge right here.