The city of Memphis is located on a great bluff that rises above the Mississippi River. Since the early 19th century, its riverfront has largely been used as a working yard for industry and transport, cluttered with terminal buildings, grain elevators, and barges that obstructed the public from directly accessing the river. Today, as Memphians embrace a renewed relationship with the Mississippi, the new Tom Lee Park will catalyze the reunification of river and city by transforming a significant piece of the riverfront into a signature park where community life can flourish along the water’s edge.

Developed in collaboration with SCAPE, the park’s design is informed by the dynamic patterns of flow that are so characteristic of the Mississippi, whose winding oxbows and other features have etched the region over time. Both architecture and landscape work together to smoothly facilitate the movement of people into and through the park, and to capture—on land—the sense of motion and change that the river exemplifies.

To open up access to the park and create a welcoming sense of arrival, the design includes five new and improved entrances with defined landing points that extend from major streets. From here, visitors are greeted by new topography, plantings, and paths that frame views of the river, guide them to specific landmarks, and connect them with the park’s outdoor spaces, which range in scale from open lawns for games and cookouts to wooded micro-forests for shaded rest.

The park’s program incorporates the ideas and input of Memphians from across the city. Designed to support their ambitions and favorite activities, new structures emerge from the landscape to flexibly accommodate a range of uses—sports and fitness, outdoor education, community dinners, and concerts, to name just a few—and to elevate them with the living backdrop of the Mississippi.

Inspired by the industrial structures that once operated on the riverfront, these pavilions and shelters introduce a material aesthetic that embraces the palette of Memphis and the patina that will come with time.

Throughout the park, regionally-specific plant species provide shade and beauty for people as well as critical habitat for wildlife. Well-adapted to life at the Mississippi’s edge, these trees, shrubs, and other plants make the park a resilient and ever-changing place that marks the passage of the seasons—a peaceful spot within the city for Memphians to reconnect with each other and nature’s rhythms.