Skip to main content
ASLA 2026 Conference on Landscape Architecture Main banner

The Future of the Public Realm

FRI-A11: Landscape Detectives: Revealing Community History and Activating Restorative Design in Public Parks

Friday, September 18, 2026
9:00 AM - 10:15 AM PT
1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW

Charlotte’s Black community has been excluded from public landscapes and cultural narratives since the city’s founding. Through interdisciplinary design approaches to archival photographs, deeds, oral histories, and ruins on public land, Mecklenburg County Parks is resurrecting lost history to build authentic public landscapes where all people feel dignity and belonging.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Apply strategies to leverage capital investments in public parks to achieve multiple program objectives, inspire transformative design outcomes, and meet community needs.
  • Apply methods for interdisciplinary collaboration with community historians and stakeholders, including how to facilitate successful conversations with intergenerational community members.
  • Visualize techniques for hybridizing digital and analog tools to document, discover, and communicate community history throughout a design process.
  • Develop approaches to empower communities and individuals to connect to their history through park spaces and regular skills-based programming.