Parks that Welcome
Parks are essential infrastructure for modern life in a changing world; they’re simultaneously places of gathering, refuge, and ecological life. They are most powerful when they are inviting, inclusive, and welcoming to all.
We engage communities to shape parks together, choreographing places to play and meet new neighbors, places for civic expression and events, and passive spaces for retreat and rejuvenation. Inclusion is a common thread through every decision, from the first community conversation to the long-term measure of a park's impact on civic life. Our parks embody the social and ecological fabric that surrounds them, telling stories about the local culture while adapting the landscape for a changing climate.
Inclusive from the very beginning
Meaningful inclusion begins long before the first sketch. It begins with a genuine commitment to collaborative design, listening before proposing, and tailoring engagement to the people who will use and care for a place through multigenerational, multicultural, and multilingual outreach. This requires designing the engagement process with the same rigor and creativity as the landscape itself.
A physical expression of belonging
We deliberately design parks full of physical elements that signal belonging. Design decisions like sightlines, welcoming public signage, the slope of a path, and the placement and shape of a seat all shape who feels welcome.
Few projects demonstrate this as powerfully as Tom Lee Park in Memphis. On opening weekend, hundreds of Memphians came to the river in a full expression of the city's Black culture: brass bands, gospel choirs, an outpouring of civic pride. Named after Tom Lee, a Black local hero who, in 1925, rescued 32 passengers from a capsized ferry using his small motorboat, Tom Lee Park sends a clear message to all Memphians: you belong here.
Tom Lee's legacy is honored throughout the design in signals of inclusivity, including art installations like Theaster Gates' A Monument to Listening and a vivid mural adapted from James Little's painting Democratic Experiment.
Tom Lee's legacy is honored throughout the design in signals of inclusivity, including art installations like Theaster Gates' A Monument to Listening and a vivid mural adapted from James Little's painting Democratic Experiment.
“Tom Lee Park is the product of aiming high, thinking more boldly and insisting that equity, opportunity, and the joy are driving park design principles.”
President & CEO, Memphis River Parks Partnership
Ecological storytelling and visual identity
Across our projects, we tell stories about ecology and culture to create welcoming places grounded in local context.
At Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus in Boston, SCAPE weaves ecological storytelling into the physical landscape, creating a distinctly place-based identity for a new district.
An undulating rock outcropping references the area’s glacial origins and is made in part from stone reclaimed on site. It creates a unique topography, informal lounging space, and evokes the nature of Allston’s local landscape.
An undulating rock outcropping references the area’s glacial origins and is made in part from stone reclaimed on site. It creates a unique topography, informal lounging space, and evokes the nature of Allston’s local landscape.
An interactive water feature evokes the former tidelands of the Charles River and creates space for intergenerational play. These design elements invite park users of all ages to interact and immerse themselves in the space.
An interactive water feature evokes the former tidelands of the Charles River and creates space for intergenerational play. These design elements invite park users of all ages to interact and immerse themselves in the space.
Many of our parks invite people back to landscapes that had been closed off for decades, fostering new forms of public life and activity on post-industrial lands. These unique sites must heal environmental damage while supporting vibrant public life through accessible, welcoming design. SCAPE is working to transform Manresa Island—a former NRG power plant site closed in 2013—into a public park. In the years since its closure, a surprising urban ecosystem appeared: birch forests, turkeys, coyotes, ospreys, and emergent wetlands. The new design preserves this emergent ecosystem while remediating the site and the building, opening the site to the public for waterfront access, nature trails, swimming, recreation, and gathering.
In the press
Programming as civic infrastructure
While design creates the conditions for a welcoming public space, ongoing programming and everyday activation sustain a deeper sense of belonging and local use. When parks are designed to accommodate a range of activities, they become part of people's daily lives—from morning commutes and weekend workout classes to music festivals. Behind the scenes, careful planning supports these experiences through flexible spaces integrated with power, water, Wi-Fi, lighting, and service access. Learn how SCAPE choreographs human and non-human spaces in Cities as Habitat.
“I look at this park, I look at the people out here and I say [Mission Rock Partners,] good job, City, good job. It’s very rare that we’re able to come together and then come out with a product such as this park.”
President, Port of San Francisco's Southern Advisory Committee
Executive Director, Potrero Hill Neighborhood House
Not every landscape moment is a big event. Designed as much for quiet reflection and relaxation as for active programming, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts’ grounds offer everyday spaces where visitors can slow down, wander, and create art in the landscape.
What makes a successful park?
The most successful parks are deeply rooted in their communities and part of everyday local life. SCAPE’s design process is grounded in understanding what connects people to place—through studying built landscapes and beloved places, and through ongoing evaluation of project performance after completion.
The Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation conducted a case study on Tom Lee Park that offers a model for this kind of accountability. It documents how the park’s transformation generates joy, connection, pride, and meaning for all visitors, contributing important evidence to the broader conversation on design equity, gradual placemaking, and the power of sustained community partnerships.
As a continuing effort to measure social and ecological impact, SCAPE’s Town Branch Commons in Lexington, Kentucky, was a case study for the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Landscape Performance Series.
The study reported significant improvements in recreation, social connectivity, regional identity, safety, quality of life, and flourishing economic activity along the corridor. Read the full study here.
84% of people surveyed say they feel happy or energized when visiting Town Branch Commons.
Parks are living landscapes, continually shaped by their histories and the people who use them. Stewardship ensures they remain accessible, adaptable, and responsive to change. The parks we design today become shared civic foundations—welcoming places that support connection and everyday life.
