Designing urban parks typically does not start from scratch. More often, designers inherit complex sites and aging infrastructure, with spaces deeply rooted in city history.
Finlay Park in Columbia, South Carolina, exemplifies this—shaped by more than 170 years of physical transformation and community attachment. A 2025 renovation built on this history through a careful redesign that balanced preservation with function, history with modern use, and design legacy with contemporary urban life and park design.
In this article for PRB+ Magazine, lead landscape architect Jenny Horne (Stantec), Todd Martin (City of Columbia), and Mark Johnson (Civitas) share how Finlay Park’s thoughtful redesign took shape and breathed new life into a cherished staple of the Columbia community.
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