Planning, Design & Construction

Native American Landscape Garden

The vision for the new Native American Garden is to provide a Learning and Living Garden that will honor the land’s original inhabitants and raise the ecological value of the landscape of Pierce Hall and the Mall. The guiding principles include:

• Honor and build a strong relationship with the Cahuilla, Tongva, Serrano and Luiseno tribes.
• Make the Landscape Garden a place where indigenous language and tribal knowledge is primary.
• Create a Gathering Space that is especially welcoming to Native American students and faculty, the local tribal community.
• Increase the ecological value of the land by planting regional native plants in their plant community.
• Make the project into an educational class and outdoor classroom experience.
• Formalize the Land Acknowledgement statement in a permanent outdoor element.
• Bring Native art and artists into the Native American Landscape Garden and Campus.
• Connect the Native American Landscape Garden to other areas of campus where Native American use plants are growing, including the UCR Botanic Garden.

Project Scope:

The Native American Landscape Garden at UC Riverside will be located at a currently unoccupied campus landscape space in the upper mall near the center of campus, bound on the west by the Highlander Union, on the east by Pierce Hall, generally on the north by UCR Bookstore and Bourns Hall, and on the south by upper HUB mall plaza and outdoor space associated with the Highlander Union. The proposed work will involve moderate grading and extensive replanting to create distinct landscapes that represent important plants and plant communities of the indigenous cultures from the Riverside Region. These landscapes will be manifest as three distinct spaces: The Gathering Circle Garden, Native American Garden, and Art Garden. Each will be served by an accessible, compacted decomposed granite path, provided with irrigation, and planted with regional California Native species. Minimal demolition will occur to develop these areas and there will be no impact to building access.

Construction Notices