Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee provides respite while reflecting on the long history of racial injustice.
Once a city dump on the Mississippi waterfront, Tom Lee Park in Memphis, Tennessee, is now a landmark park. The design provides downtown Memphis with a destination playground, water features, hammocks, art installations, new climate-adaptive trees 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 also includes a pollinator lab with a learning curriculum developed by the landscape architects. The two firms earned a Honor Award in the General Design category.
Courtesy Church Health.
The park honors a Black Memphian who saved 32 people from drowning in 1925?even though he couldn?t swim and was risking his own life. The design for the park recognizes Lee?s generosity while inviting visitors to reflect on a larger story of racial injustice. One public art installation incorporates 32 thrones representing the lives Lee saved. The landscape architects link Lee?s heroic efforts to contemporary events, as the canopy at the riverside is dedicated to Tyre Nichols, a Black man killed by police in 2023. The jury called this project a ?great public space for the community, with excellent integration of materials, plantings, and context to form a variety of spaces.? A view of Tom Lee Park on the Mississippi River. Courtesy of Connor Ryan.
The basketball courts at Tom Lee Park. Courtes...