Description:

In the Spring of 2009, eleven graduate students under the direction of their instructors, Peter Kumble and Mark Hamin, prepared a neighborhood redevelopment plan with stakeholders in the South End neighborhood of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The aim of the studio was to research, plan and design for a culturally significant landscape, with the goal of generating a viable community revitalization and redevelopment plan for the South End. Social, physical and environmental aspects were all carefully examined through the lens of cultural preservation and neighborhood capacity.

The work presented in this report builds on earlier work by UMass LARP graduate students who conducted a community-visioning workshop aimed at preserving the historic Freeman Houses in the South End neighborhood.  The Freeman Houses are significant in that they are the last two remaining houses of “Little Liberia,” a settlement of free African Americans in the 19th century. Currently, the fate of these two historic structures is uncertain (see NY Times story on the houses ).

The work prepared by the UMass graduate students does not focus on the Freeman Houses specifically. Though their significance is essential to the process, preserving the Freeman Houses will not achieve neighborhood revitalization in and of itself.

More information :

Peter Kumble **** Mark Hamin **** New York Times Report