In September 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina with flooding, landslides and power outages. In his independent study project, Master of Landscape Architecture student Holden McCullough envisions a way for communities to memorialize this event in Asheville’s River Arts District.
In August 2024, Holden McCullough left Asheville, North Carolina to start the College of Environment and Design’s Master of Landscape Architecture program. Just a month later, Hurricane Helene decimated the city.
“I’ve spent much of my life in western North Carolina as a visitor, and I lived there the year prior to Hurricane Helene as a practicing landscape architect,” said McCullough. “When the storm occurred, it was about a month after I had relocated to Athens.”
The emotions McCullough felt after Helene stuck with him throughout his first year in the MLA program. When McCullough had the opportunity to conduct an independent study in fall 2025, he knew he wanted to use the study to support ongoing recovery efforts in the area.
Holden McCullough is a second-year Master of Landscape Architecture student at the College of Environment and Design. He is set to graduate from the program this spring.
With this intention in mind, an idea for a memorial landscape in Asheville was born.
“Originally, I had come in with the intent to create a more formalized typical memorial, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t necessarily my place or my job to prescribe something so specific to people,” said McCullough. “I took more of the lens of ‘Well, how can I use the existing skills and talents of the locals and create a framework rather than a prescriptive memorial site?’”
McCullough chose to focus on Asheville’s River Arts District (RAD), a corridor along the French Broad River that is home to a vibrant community of working art studios and galleries. When Hurricane Helene hit, the district was plunged underwater, with an estimated 80% of structures in the district impacted by the flooding.
In his project “Reclaiming Space: A Memorial Landscape in Asheville’s River Arts District,” McCullough proposes applying local art to vertical surfaces in the district that were submerged during flooding caused by the hurricane, up to the high-water mark.
“There are these high-water marks on all of the vertical surfaces,” said McCullough. “Lamp poles, overpass bridges, the columns and of course all the buildings that were flooded. It just creates a mosaic of potential objects to apply artwork to.”
Graphic depiction of McCullough’s proposal. The high water mark– the highest point where flood waters from Hurricane Helene hit structures– is indicated with a dashed line. Art application is indicated by the multicolor pattern. Credit / Holden McCullough
The project has three goals: to support mental and physical recovery efforts, allow the local community to create their own narrative through the design and application of the landscape and to give context to out of town visitors.
“The high-water mark is a factual indicator, especially to visitors which are so present in Asheville and who oftentimes are unaware of local culture or happenings,” said McCullough. “I want visitors to understand the extent of the event and have empathy for those who experienced it.”
While McCullough was in Georgia during Hurricane Helene, he is not a stranger to catastrophic floods. When he was a sophomore in high school, a “1,000-year flood” submerged his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.
“The smell of mud, the sight of pictures in murky water and destroyed homes– I’m unfortunately familiar with that,” said McCullough, “I had experienced that in my community, and it felt like it was happening to my community again.”
Graphic renderings of McCullough’s proposal on Haywood Street Bridge (left) and River Arts Place (right) in the River Arts District. Photographs and renderings by Holden McCullough. Artwork: “Emergence, Wildflower Bouquet, Summer Joy, and Hint of Spring” by Raphaella Vaisseau (left) and “Alive” by Angela Alexander (right).
To help guide his project, McCullough interviewed and surveyed Asheville residents on what they would want to see in a memorial. In his renderings, McCullough used art from local RAD artists who lost work in the flood: Angela Alexander, Spencer Beals and Raphaella Vaisseau.
“I wanted it to be a community undertaking, not somebody coming out and just doing it all for them,” said McCullough. “This is a spontaneous, easy to reach project for people who were actually impacted.”
“Reclaiming Space” is conceptual in nature, and McCullough views it as an illustration of a theoretical and community-oriented framework that RAD, and any other community impacted by extreme flooding, could choose to adapt and apply.
“We realized in working though concepts and in interviews with local people that there was a need to offer a solution for the region, from urban and rural places and everything in between,” said Professor Brad Davis, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs and McCullough’s advisor for the project. “Holden’s design offers a flexible framework and provides an inspiring example of ways to use design and planning skills to craft a framework that features the work of local artists.”
This spring, amidst writing his MLA thesis, McCullough has distributed his concept to publications and organizations at the encouragement of local artists and residents. In May, he is presenting the project at a community resilience conference in Asheville.
“This is really replicable and really community-oriented,” said McCullough. “If you’re an artist community and you’re funky like Asheville, reclaim that space, make it your own and really just take it back.”
Statement from the Designer:
“I’ve been thinking about what it means to deeply heal from the grief of a natural disaster. Having experienced a 1000-year flood event in my hometown of Columbia, SC in 2015, I ask myself this in reflection: was simply rebuilding enough? Or is this lacking some form of acknowledgement that everything changed in a moment?” – Holden McCullough
