In 2016 a partnership between the City of Knoxville and the Aslan Foundation asked Sanders Pace Architects to provide a comprehensive framework for the future development of significant cultural and historical sites located just two miles from downtown Knoxville within a site area known as the Battlefield Loop. Working with consultant PORT Urbanism, SPA completed a study that proposed connections between a number of isolated sites by expanding the boundaries of the Loop to incorporate important relics of Knoxville’s industrial past, each with an important narrative underscoring Knoxville’s early role as a manufacturing leader in the post-civil war New South.
The resultant Battlefield Loop study established a framework for phased redevelopment of over 600 acres that anchors the western edge of Knoxville’s Urban Wilderness. Projects completed to date within the study area include the Loghaven Artist Residency, the restoration of the Historic Candoro Marble Building into a new community arts space, and Augusta Quarry at Fort Dickerson Park that now serves as a regional aquatic and recreational site in South Knoxville.
