ASLA Legacy Project

In 2008, ASLA introduced the Legacy Project as a gift to the host city of the annual conference. Each year, the host chapter teams up with the local affiliate of the ACE Mentor Program to recruit local area high school students for a landscape architecture design project. Work on this year’s project has already begun and will be completed and installed after the conference. 

Maxfield Elementary School, located in the heart of the historically Black community of Rondo in St. Paul, Minnesota is the focus of the 2023 ASLA Legacy Project. This school, which was moved for the construction of Interstate Highway 94, serves students from diverse cultural backgrounds in pre-K through grade 5. The project will update Maxfield’s schoolyard, in partnership with the community, Trust for Public Land (TPL), Urban Farm, Garden Alliance, and Gordon Parks High School. The upgrading of the playground will improve the functionality and safety of the space. In addition, by enhancing the green space the playground will create a healthier environment so that the community and Maxfield teachers will be able to tap into students’ curiosity, enthusiasm, and imagination to engage them fully in learning.  

The 2023 Legacy Project is consistent with this year’s conference theme of “Scale Up,” because it affords members the opportunity to strengthen ASLA’s commitment to increasing green spaces in school yards and to improve racial equity.