El Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes | MASS Design Group

El Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes

Project Data

Full Team

Year

2024

Status

Completed

Size

20,000 sq ft

Location

Presidio, Texas, United States

Partners

Lipan Apache Tribe

Collaborators

Lara Construction, Nakaya Flotte Consulting, Hisa Ota Lighting Design, MAKE Santa Fe

Photographer

MASS

Focus areas

Civic Spaces & Cultural Centers, Memorials & Monuments, Native Communities

Services

Architecture, Engineering, Exhibits & Interpretation, Film & Media, Landscape Architecture

Project Team

Mario Devora, Joseph Kunkel, Prescott Trudeau, Mayrah Udvardi, Annie Wang

Full Team

Project Team

Mario Devora, Joseph Kunkel, Prescott Trudeau, Mayrah Udvardi, Annie Wang

Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes Protection Project

The Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes restores and protects an Indigenous burial ground while advancing cultural recognition, healing, and land back. The cemetary is a spatial and cultural reclamation of a sacred Lipan Apache burial site in Presidio, Texas. Once fragmented and misused due to centuries of urban development, this site now stands as a powerful symbol of Indigenous resilience, memory, and land stewardship.

1920

1980

2025

For generations, the cemetery has served as the final resting place for Jumano Peoples and the Lipan Apache, who settled in the region in the 1700s after being forcibly displaced from their ancestral homelands. The site endured repeated disruptions as jurisdiction shifted between Mexico and the United States, and the Lipan Apache were driven from their lands by 19th-century U.S. removal policies. Despite being recognized by the State of Texas in 2009, the Tribe remains federally unrecognized, limiting access to critical federal resources.

The cemetery’s preservation represents a crucial chapter in the Lipan Apache’s ongoing fight for cultural recognition and tribal sovereignty. After decades of advocacy, the Lipan Apache Tribal Council sought formal designation of the sacred site as an antiquities landmark in 2013. In 2021, the City of Presidio transferred its portion of the land within the cemetery to the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, and the site was finally recognized with a Texas Historical Commission marker. This project marks the beginning of a long-overdue journey of healing, visibility, and cultural affirmation.

The cemetery’s redesign reclaims Indigenous history through a respectful, non-invasive approach rooted in trauma-informed, land-sensitive, and culturally grounded design. Key features include a culturally sensitive enclosure that mitigates erosion while signaling the site’s sanctity; gravel pathways, benches, an offering wall, and a marker that contextualizes the history of the cemetery.

Forty-five graves have been identified within the 3,000-year-old mound, with more lying in the outer perimeter. To protect the burials, all interventions are foundation-free, avoiding invasive construction methods and instead honoring Indigenous relationships with the land: a ground-making, not ground-breaking. More than a memorial to the dead, the project honors the lives of preceding and current generations and uncovers the previously erased and unrecognized cultures of Indigenous people.

The design revives the sacred geometry of the original burial mound using three core principles: Curved gabion wall segments introduce porosity, facilitating movement into the cemetery while accommodating existing topography and graves. Entrance and exit points are aligned in the cardinal directions, highlighting the importance of the Four Directions in Lipan cosmology. Lastly, the mound’s gradual reformation is symbolized through the rippling of walls out from the site’s central high point, creating a flexible design language that can grow as the cemetery’s original mound is reclaimed over time.

Gabion walls were chosen for their minimal environmental impact, durability, cultural familiarity; and because they extend the language of the burial mound sentinel stones. Corten steel signage along the perimeter offers wayfinding, history, and respectful guidance for visitors. Gravel pathways help visitors navigate their healing journey across the site, and keep the marked and unmarked graves from being disturbed.

Lighting is dark sky compliant, modeling new codes for the region requiring 2200k or less downlight emittance. This is particularly important for the Big Bend Region, one of the world’s largest migratory corridors.

Existing vegetation, including creosote, desert willow, and prickly pear cactus has been preserved to the greatest extent possible. These plants are sacred medicines to the Lipan and their roots are intertwined with their ancestors.

Ongoing collaboration with the cemetery committee and Presidio-area descendants was crucial to ensure the design, construction, and interpretation process was Native-led. The development of the trilingual interpretive signage —in Lipan Apache, Spanish, and English—created an opportunity for collaboration between descendants, Tribal leadership, and language revitalization scholars.

In March 2024, the Cementerio del Barrio de los Lipanes reopened to the public. Members of the Lipan Apache Tribe, descendants, and community members gathered to honor the site and celebrate the completion of its first phase—a milestone in the ongoing journey toward healing, recognition, and the reclamation of unceded Indigenous land.