In the fall of 2024, the UMass Design Build faculty were asked by the Chancellor's Office to assist with rethinking the Boyhood Homesite of W.E.B. DuBois, a property gifted to UMass Amherst by the DuBois family. The property in Great Barrington was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1979 but has been sorely neglected since, and the university has decided to finally take a more active role in stewarding the site. As a design-build architecture faculty member, I volunteered to spearhead this initiative and pulled in Prof. Michael Davidsohn from Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning and Whitney Battle-Baptiste, the Director of the DuBois Research Center at UMass, to work in collaboration to assemble a team of LARP and architecture students to develop a concept proposal for an approach to the site and memorial. Mike spearheaded the site strategy with his students while I worked closely with two architecture students—one from Mount Holyoke and one from UMass—to develop concept design ideas for the Memorial. Whitney offered critique and input throughout the entire process. The project was presented to the chancellor in May 2025, and we hope to receive support from the university to continue the work in the coming academic year, involving more stakeholders in the process.

The following pages present the memorial proposal for where the home of DuBois' grandparents, the “Black Burghardts," once stood. By rebuilding the footprint of the home and fireplace in stone and creating seating, visitors will be able to enter the home and experience the space and hearth of Du Bois’ earliest memories. The Landscape proposal is not shown