The Historic Bruce Street School: A Community-Centered Design Approach

Honor Award

Communications

Lithonia, Georgia, United States
Martin Rickles Studio
Client: Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance, DeKalb County, City of Lithonia

Collage of "Making Impressions" Instruction Board with Composite Charcoal Rubbings

Shown is the “Making Impressions” instruction board juxtaposed next to a composite of community-made charcoal rubbings.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Martin Rickles Studio Team
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Collage of community members participating in "Making Impressions"

Pictured are community members creating charcoal rubbings and clay impressions in their selected locations on the School.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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Community members filling out worksheets for "Making Impressions"

Iman Person from the Design Team working with participants to fill out their “Making Impressions” worksheets with the artifacts they made.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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Collage of "Making Impressions" worksheets

Shown are 4 out of the 50 “Making Impressions” worksheets collected during the first two community engagement events.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Martin Rickles Studio Team
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Collage of "Voicing Impressions" instruction board and oral histories stills

The Design Team’s historian conducted oral history interviews with alumni through “Voicing Impressions.”

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Martin Rickles Studio Team / Stills by R&D Studios
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Collage of "Leaving Impressions" instruction board and activity

Alumni working with the Team to locate architectural elements of the School that was otherwise not documented.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Martin Rickles Studio Team / Photo by Talecia Tucker
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"Space Impressions" worksheets filled out by alumni

“Space Impressions” worksheets alumni filled out. Without these documented accounts much of what we now know about the layout may have been lost.

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Collage of the "Leaving Impressions" instruction board and the associated reflection boards

As community members left the event they were asked to write reflections about their memories, dreams, and the legacy of the School.

Image Credit: courtesy of the Martin Rickles Studio Team / Photo by Talecia Tucker
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"Memory" board from "Leaving Impressions"

A Bruce Street School Alumnae recording a memory about her time as a student.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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Collage of community reflections from "Leaving Impressions"

As community members left the event they were asked to write reflections about their memories, dreams, and the legacy of the School.

Image Credit: Courtesy of the Martin Rickles Studio Team
Members of the Press: Please submit high-resolution image requests to press@asla.org. Awards Images Terms of Use

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Front/Back of a community member's postcard reflection from the design futures event

After reviewing commemorative banners at the “centennial event” participants were given postcards to imagine what the School looks like in 2038.

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Community members at the "centennial event" filling out a reflective post card with a Design Team member

During the event, the walls were decorated with banners full of historic imagery, and artifacts for community members to reflect on.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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Printed community workbooks

The workbooks were used to clearly showcase design development. They outlined how the design formed out of the community-centered process.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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Printed workbook outlining the final conceptual design

The printed document doubled as a workbook and a poster. Shown is a spread showcasing the final conceptual design.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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Printed workbooks with documented reflections from "Making Impressions" and "Leaving Impressions"

A thorough breakdown of the previous engagements and how they influenced the developing conceptual design was presented through workbooks.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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The Design Team leading a community work session

A community work session where the Design Team cross referenced design intent with artifacts and recordings made during other events.

Image Credit: Talecia Tucker
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“

Innovative in both approach and method, this is a powerful process of listening, tracing memory and senses in a new and pure way. It’s a beautiful and unique exploration of sensory ethnography and oral history through the theme of “impressions”. This work reimagines how landscape architects can engage with communities to build connections, unearth collective memory, and activate our senses to explore possibilities for meaningful and sometimes painful places of our shared history.

”

- 2023 Awards Jury

Project Credits

Amy Landesberg, Artist, Architect

Iman Person, Artist

Anh-ton Tran, Design Researcher

Scott Morris, Architectural Historian

Jennifer Martin, Architect

Talecia Tucker, Photographer

R&D Studios, Photographer

Carley Rickles, ASLA, Landscape Designer

Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance, Client Team

DeKalb County, Client Team

City of Lithonia, Client Team

Project Statement

To reimagine the ruins of the Historic Bruce Street School (also known as the Lithonia Negro School), the Design Team looked to the community. The Design Team stewarded this process with careful consideration by forming a community-centered and robust engagement plan that went above and beyond the typical design-focused public meeting format. The 7 public sessions accomplished the following: (1) They familiarized and re-familiarize stakeholders with the School’s history, and its physicality through sensory ethnography exercises. (2) They recorded oral and written histories. (3) They created a platform for community members to share their visions for the future and brainstorm ideas through virtual and in-person design futures workshops.

Project Narrative

The Bruce Street School (also known as the Lithonia Negro School) was the first public school for African American students in DeKalb County. It was built in 1938 on 6 acres of pine-covered land in the city of Lithonia, which was purchased through community-raised funds. The School remained in use until 1955, following the end of legal segregation. The students were relocated to an “equalization school” across the street and shortly thereafter the old building caught fire, leaving the stone walls exposed to ruin for the next 66+ years.

In 2006 the nonprofit Arabia Mountain Heritage Area Alliance was formed to oversee the Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area—a 40,000 acre cultural landscape which encompasses many of the landmarks in the City of Lithonia. In 2016 the City of Lithonia was listed in the National Register of Historic Places, with the Bruce Street School as a contributing structure. Shortly thereafter, the Alliance initiated the work for the preservation and reuse of the Bruce Street School ruins with the support of the School’s alumni and other community stakeholders. Through an RFP process in 2021, the Alliance selected a landscape architecture-led interdisciplinary team focused on community-centered design to shepherd the legacy of the School.

Over the course of a year the Design Team led 7 inclusive community engagement sessions with over 150 participants working to develop a conceptual design for the future of this important site. The first two sessions (centered on the theme of "Impressions") were focused on familiarizing (and re-familiarizing) the community and the Design Team with each other, the school’s history, and its current state of being. Four activities were planned around this theme: "Voicing Impressions," where oral history interviews with alumni were video-recorded; "Making Impressions," where participants created charcoal rubbings and clay impressions of the stone walls; "Space Impressions," where alumni helped retrace the rooms, outdoor spaces, individuals, objects, and activities of the site; and "Leaving Impressions," where participants shared their memories, feelings, and wishes for the School. These Impressions were archived and shared at the events to follow.

The next community engagement events were “design futures workshops,” where participants were prompted to imagine they were celebrating the 2038 centennial anniversary of the School. Attendees participated in group discussions and were given postcards to describe the atmosphere and activities taking place at the future School.

After a meticulous review of the artifacts produced during these initial engagement events, the Design Team identified three main themes which had emerged, and would be used to inspire physical and programmatic elements of the conceptual design: (1) welcoming and relaxing, (2) active learning and community, and (3) remembering and honoring.

The last 3 events were designed to walk community members through the final design direction, and its community involved process, and to take in feedback. At each of these events a thorough breakdown of the previous engagements and how they influenced the conceptual design was presented through project boards and workbooks.This resulted in a single consolidated conceptual design which, like the stone School building, was built up by the community one piece at a time.