SAT-C06: Making History: Participatory Design to Commemorate Park Histories in LA’s Salazar Park

Saturday, October 28, 2023

3:45pm – 5:00pm CT

1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW, AICP, FL, NY/HSW

Lead Speaker(s)

Jerome Chou, ASLA (he/him/his)

Senior Planning Principal
Kounkuey Design Initiative
Los Angeles, California

Speaker(s)

Christian A. Amaral, ASLA

Associate
SALT Landscape Architects
Los Angeles, California
Diane Silva (she/her/hers)

Departmental Facilities Planner
Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation
Alhambra, California

This session outlines how landscape architects can reveal hidden park histories, and make them compelling to diverse audiences today. Through a case study of Los Angeles’s Salazar Park—a key site in Latino history—panelists will describe innovative methods for designing programs and park features that drive engagement and celebrate those stories.

Learning Outcomes:

Uncover the hidden histories in any public park through interviews, archival and online research, and other methods.
Develop engagement approaches and specific activities to connect people to history, and to build residents’ capacity to co-design commemorative installation.
Infuse history designing programs, commemorative elements, and everyday park features in a community park, with examples from our project and precedents from around the country.
Understand and celebrate parks as key sites in many important social justice movements, and a potential catalyst and infrastructure for activism today.