Nina Chase & Chris Merritt
Designing places people love—public parks, plazas, and cultural districts—across the Midwest, Rust Belt, and Appalachia.
When Nina Chase and Chris Merritt met at a well-known landscape architecture firm in Boston, they quickly noticed that they had complementary skill sets, and a similar desire to work in the kinds of places they grew up: West Virginia and Indiana, respectively. Together, they founded Merritt Chase, a landscape architecture firm that’s transforming public landscapes across the Midwest, Rust Belt, and Appalachia. They believe that thoughtfully designed public spaces—be they parks, gardens, plazas, waterfronts, or cultural districts—can pay homage to history, restore degraded habitats, and reflect the character of local communities.
Merritt and Chase are both graduates of Harvard’s School of Design, and their firm operates out of Pittsburgh, where Chase is based, and Indianapolis, which is home for Merritt. Together with their team, they create places that not only strengthen communities, but improve people’s lives.
People in Indianapolis know Monument Circle well. As the heart of downtown civic life, it’s located in the city’s geographic center, as well as the geographic center of the state. Monument Circle’s towering obelisk—the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the first statue in the U.S. to honor the common soldier—was built in 1902, and in the years since, has become an icon of the city. While the circle is a grand public space, much of its square footage is currently given over to cars, and its facilities are suitable for large-scale public events rather than the smaller everyday usage that could make it a cornerstone of the city’s public life.
As Emerson Collective Fellows, Chase and Merritt will reimagine this space as a human-scaled place. Through meaningful engagement with city leadership, the business community, and the general public, they’ll develop a design that honors Monument Circle’s rich history and shapes a more connected, welcoming future for the city. “We hope that the community process and physical space can strengthen local connections,” Chase and Merritt say, “and broaden assumptions about community in Middle America.”