In 2023, SCAPE was selected to participate in “The Laboratory of the Future,” the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Lesley Lokko. as part of the “Dangerous Liaisons” exhibition in the Venetian Arsenale.
SCAPE’s installation, Workshopping the Chattahoochee, is a testament to the difficult and essential work of community-driven design, explored through the lens of a decades-long planning process along the Chattahoochee River in the Metro Atlanta Region. The Chattahoochee RiverLands is an effort championed by the Trust for Public Land to reimagine the region’s relationship with the river—stitching together over 100 miles of public and private land through accessible greenways and blueways, parks, bike paths, and more, ultimately connecting over a million residents within a 15-minute bike ride of the river and each other.
Rather than present a polished vision, the installation embraces the generative clutter of collaborative design, repurposing tools and artifacts gathered from the planning process. The artifacts include patchworked river maps overlaid with layers of acetate on which community members drew greenway alignments, aspirations, and memories, a hand-painted model dotted with flags from open houses, albums of film photos from “River Rambles” with a local youth center, and another focused on accessible trail design and sensory engagement.
Together with ecological and cultural relics from the river’s edge—an album of native plants; jars of river water and mud; a brick from the site of the former Chattahoochee Brick Company—“Workshopping the Chattahoochee” centers process rather than product, barely scratching the surface of stories told, investments made, histories unearthed, and work that remains to be done along the river in decades to come.
The exhibition was on view from May 20 to November 26, 2023.
Client
- Trust for Public Land (TPL)
- Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC)
- City of Atlanta, Georgia
- Cobb County, Georgia
Collaborators
Gresham Smith
New South Associates
Biohabitats
Dr. Na’Taki Osbourne Jelks
Dr. Richard Milligan
Edwards Pittman