Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park

an initiative of reclamation, reconciliation and memorialization for the city of Richmond through a new public space

Shockoe Bottom, an area of Richmond, VA, was the site of largest domestic slave-trading district in the United States second only to New Orleans. The stories of the hundreds of thousands of enslaved individuals lie largely untold and invisible as the physical history has become buried by infrastructure and development with few efforts to honor and pay tribute. 

Initiated by the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality and funded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a week-long design charrette was implemented working in collaboration with the Center for Design Engagement (CD*E) and Randy Crandon. The charrette consisted of a series of open public forums where community members were asked to engage with the current issues and prospects of memorialization, while offering their vision for a new public park on a site in Shockoe Bottom. As a culminating effort, a speculative design proposal and report rooted in and informed by the visions of the residents of Richmond was then developed by CD*E.

The design preserves the land as sacred and creates areas for memorialization of the past while offering strategies for sustainable and responsible economic opportunities through the development of a new Center for Building Arts, urban agriculture, and a new public square. A full report was developed in an effort to further progress the conversation regarding the sacred site.