Atlanta's Freedom Park Getting a Facelift

The Freedom Park Conservancy has chosen SWA Group, a leading landscape architecture and urban design firm, to re-envision Atlanta's 200-acre Freedom Park with a new master plan. An important aspect of the project will be addressing the remnants of a deserted east-side freeway project that destroyed hundreds of homes in the 1970s, displacing residents. Matt Hickman describes the legacy of the park and the significance of the project: 

While the Georgia Department of Transportation’s freeway project never came to fruition, a victory for the local activists and community leaders who rallied against it, it did leave behind large swaths of overgrown, blighted land—a variable kudzu jungle—that long sat empty and unused. That is until the creation of what is today a well-maintained and topographically varied park popular with joggers, walkers, cyclists, and out-of-town sightseers looking to take in the city from a decidedly less tourist-clogged vantage point. 

SWA Group will work to transform the park to better connect downtown Atlanta with adjacent neighborhoods and integrate the park's unique artistic and historical character.