Master Plan Design Competition
The Shelby Farms Park Design Competition created an exciting opportunity to bring teams of internationally renowned designers to Shelby County and the City of Memphis. These designers came with a singular purpose; to design a great 21st century park. The winner of the Innovative Design Competition is field operations.
Professionals from the fields of landscape architecture, architecture, art, ecology, and engineering came together to create new visions for the park's future. Some of these ideas were immediate and sweeping. Others were more subtle and will evolve over a number of years. All of the ideas, though, are the result of intense collaboration between the designers, the public, elected officials, community representatives, and the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy. Without involvement from all of these parties, this competition, these ideas, and these presentations would not have been possible.
The goal of the Shelby Farms Park Innovative Design Competition was to choose a great design team-not a design. Ideas generated during the competition and on display as part of the exhibition were intended to demonstrate the thought, creativity, and the high level of commitment to bringing in the highest quality designers to Shelby Farms Park.
The aim of the public exhibition was to test out the effectiveness of the ideas from each of the proposals to see what garnered public support and what didn't. The ideas presented in the exhibition were meant to be a starting point and a place from which discussion about the park, its activities, characteristics, and events could take form. They generated interest, inspired participation, and showcased the great amount of work that has been done to make Shelby Farms a wonderful regional park.
