Reinterpreting a Legacy Landscape:

Finlay Park reclaims a complex urban landscape shaped by more than 170 years of transformation in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. Established in the mid-19th century, later industrialized as a rail yard, and rebuilt as a public park in 1990, the site has long been defined by its dramatic hillside. Landscape architect Robert Marvin’s original design embraced the steep terrain through walls, water features, overlooks, and cascading spaces, developing a bold topographic vision that became the park’s defining identity and its greatest challenge.

Decades of aging infrastructure, limited accessibility, and fragmented spaces eroded everyday use, dimming what had once been the crown jewel of the city. The recent redesign approached the site not as a replacement but as a reinterpretation, retaining the park’s experiential character while recalibrating it for contemporary needs and community aspirations.

Designing with Topography:

With nearly 80 feet of elevation change, accessibility became a central design challenge. Rather than conventional ramp systems alone, the redesign transforms vertical movement into a spatial experience. Gently sloped pathways weave through overlooks, terraces, and gathering spaces, allowing visitors to navigate the full hillside while remaining fully accessible.
A 235-foot cantilevered pedestrian bridge exemplifies this approach. Suspended above the park’s grotto and rapids, it carries visitors behind a waterfall and across the hillside, creating a dramatic yet universally accessible moment in the circulation network.

The destination playground is built into the hillside and accessible from multiple elevations. A central tower, logs, slides, climbing structures, and turf slopes encourage children to engage directly with the terrain. The landscape itself becoming the play structure, intuitive and inseparable from the park’s topography.

Interconnected Spaces:

The park’s spatial organization is guided by three-dimensional triangulation: from nearly any point, visitors can visually connect to multiple destinations, activities, and other people. This layered openness strengthens orientation, encourages exploration, and fosters a shared sense of presence.

At the heart of the renewed park, a central oval lawn and performance stage anchor concerts, festivals, and everyday recreation from informal play to roller skating. Meandering paths extend from the oval into a matrix of strolling gardens that establish an organic rhythm across the landscape, connecting a diverse system of amenities while offering quieter moments for reflection. Rotating sculpture installations will keep the park dynamic across seasons and years.

Fostering Safety through Design:

Dense vegetation and fragmented spaces had reduced visibility and diminished the sense of safety that invites everyday use. The redesign addressed this through selective clearing, slope regrading, and integrated lighting that reveals the park’s spatial structure after dark.

Overlapping precast concrete panels transform an existing retaining wall into a glowing landform — a lantern set into the hillside. Concealed lighting washes from the panel edges, while laser-cut steel rises behind them as a guardrail framing views of the Columbia skyline. Architectural components throughout echo this language, establishing a cohesive identity where landscape, architecture, and light make the park feel both safe and alive.

Water as Structure and Memory:

Water has always been central to Finlay Park’s identity. The redesign honors that memory rather than erasing it. Water flows from the upper fountain through pools and waterfalls, across rapids and grotto spaces, and into a reshaped pond that expands the central green while functioning as a working stormwater system. Runnels and a stream guide water to a rain garden where it is filtered and recirculated in a closed loop that preserves the park’s historic water narrative while ensuring long-term resilience.

A Park Reclaimed:

The park did not simply reopen — it resumed its place in the life of the city. It carries a steady presence: footsteps at sunrise, laughter along the slopes, and a continuous flow of daily life shared across generations and communities. What was once fragmented now feels whole. Finlay Park stands reawakened, deeply rooted in the life of Columbia. The crown jewel of the city has returned.

Owner: City of Columbia
Landscape Architecture: Stantec, Civitas, City Landscape Architect
Architecture: LS3P
Civil / Structural Engineering: Chao & Associates, Johnson & King Engineers
Lighting Consultant: BGA
Water Feature Consultant: WPLAW
General Contractor: Mashburn
Photography: Benton Henry, Joshua Aaron

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