August 2025 Intern Insights: Christian Crawley
Christian Crawley
Christian Crawley
Community Design Intern
I had the privilege of joining Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia last May as I was starting my senior project, which I knew from the start was going to involve an African American community in Northwest Roanoke, a place close to my heart, and using storytelling and communal discussions in some capacity to shape the future of a particular neighborhood through its environment. Of course, we have the MAAV way of doing things with our project communities, so working here really presented an opportunity to learn how you actually organize the people together, make them feel comfortable to share their truth, and engage on a personal level with individuals as they talk about what feels like home in their communities.
Two of the projects I’ve served as an intern for have really helped me lean into the social side of designing with small but spirited communities. The first was Traveller’s Inn in Bluefield, West Virginia, where the historically disadvantaged African American communities of North Side and East End have the opportunity to craft a public space outside a historically designated Green Book hotel site.
However, this was not just about interpreting and imparting the past for the neighborhood; instead, it became ‘how can reconnecting with yesterday’s stories inspire resilience and rapport today and generate a healthier, more dynamic tomorrow?’
The same ethos carried through in Pound, Virginia, where I’m helping to design a pocket park to accentuate a visual arts piece being created by local artists who not only know the history as its written in the books but also why those tales are worth telling and the value added when the narrative is driven from the ground up.
Sure, it would be easy to draft a plan of the site to tell a contractor how to construct it; that’s how most landscape architecture projects in the past century have been done. But knowing what I have learned about people and local culture and this ever evolving notion of monumentality, I want to guide the discipline toward a more authentically socially sustainable future just as practices across the country have made great strides to make it environmentally sustainable as well.
It’s been an absolute privilege interning with MAAV, and I would encourage anyone else who’s cared about their town or village or neighborhood the way that I have to find ways to use their talents and skills to amplify those untold histories, uplift those unsung heroes, and enrich the lives of the places and people we love.
