Project Feature Representation Pillar

Integrate diverse expressions of public art into buildings and community spaces.

Our Design Studio worked with 2 schools to implement placemaking art projects on their campuses. These projects were both focused on representing community identity.

One of the schools, Robert Churchwell Magnet Middle School is located in the historically Black neighborhood of North Nashville. Project Manager, Angel Adams, and local Muralist, Woke3, partnered with us on the project to engage with the students, creating a vision for a placemaking mural that would represent their identities. Woke3 had a special connection to this project having attended Robert Churchwell in his youth.

The final mural incorporates a mountain of books with children’s names on them and young Black kids reading so the students might see themselves in the art. The main feature is a lighthouse, which is an homage to the phrase “education is a lighthouse.” Thanks to 3M for funding the youth engagement, traffic calming, and the final mural.

The other school was Aventura Community School, which is a public K-8 school in Southeast Nashville. It is the first duallanguage charter school, where most students are native Spanish speakers, and the youngest students spend 80% of their day speaking Spanish. They approached the Civic Design Center to create a more designated play area for group activities in the parking lot. Feedback from students and families was in both Spanish and English, and the final design included Mexican and Latin American symbolism including butterflies in the crosswalk.

The students helped plant colorful flowers in the planter boxes that would surround the play area, so they could watch them grow during the school year.