Connecting to Our Indigenous Histories at Machicomoco State Park
Honor Award
Communications
Gloucester Point, Virginia, United States
Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Client: Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
The collaboration of tribal leaders and archaeologists resulted in the cultural and ecological features being successfully communicated in the landscape, not in a book or website or public event.
- 2024 Awards Jury
Project Credits
Martin Gallivan, Historian
Gropen, Signage Fabricator
Thomas Woltz, FASLA, Principal Lead Designer
Project Statement
The Machicomoco design and interpretive plan was made collaboratively by several Virginia Algonquian Tribes, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, and faculty from William and Mary, and was led by the landscape architect. The plan focused on revealing the obscured history of Virginia's Algonquian landscape artfully and compellingly to a wide audience. The communication strategy relied on two devices to share the past, present, and future of the 30 Virginia Algonquian tribes and to attune visitors' senses to the natural environment through the lens of the Algonquian worldview. The approach concentrated on signage and narrative to convey the history of Algonquian lifeways and inspire visitors' curiosity.
Project Narrative
The landscape architect designed and oversaw construction for Machicomoco, a new state park in Gloucester County, Virginia. Machicomoco is richly layered in cultural and ecological history, located on a peninsula with multiple kinds of quintessential Virginia landscapes: maritime forest, marsh, uplands, wetlands, and estuarine habitat. Throughout the master plan process, the designers explored the history of Indigenous Virginia Algonquian tribes in the region, including the factors that supported the growth of Tsenacomocah, the Algonquian nation based around the Chesapeake Bay, and the cultural significance of Werowocomoco, which is the physical and spiritual capital of the Virginia Algonquian nation.
The primary goal of the design team was to honor and express the Algonquian history of the landscape while providing recreational and educational opportunities for the Algonquian tribes, surrounding communities, and park visitors. The interpretive plan creates an engaging lens for considering the breadth of the land’s cultural and ecological legacy and the landscape of Machicomoco and greater Tsenacomocah. It weaves visitor engagement and education into the site's design elements, focus areas, and strategies in ways that encourage people to absorb the essential narratives of the region's history and ecology.
The design team collaborated with Algonquian tribal leaders to ensure that interpretive elements were grounded in truth and honored community histories, identities, and aspirations. The team also relied on deep research in collaboration with archaeologists and scholars. Paramount to the design is a focus on Algonquian capacity to imagine and celebrate a rich and thriving Virginia Algonquian future.
The Interpretive Pavilion, the main visitor entry point, integrates materials and spatial design with revelatory content. Before entering the pavilion to reach the landscape, visitors pass a cubelike sculptural representation of a shell midden, a type of repository of shellfish remains found in locations around the world left behind by coastal peoples. The sculpture refers to archaeological work identifying Algonquian oyster shell midden in and around the park land. The simple cubic form also harkens to the universal importance of data, knowledge, and evidence in unearthing important histories.