My classmates and I worked with residents from the Mantua Presbyterian Apartments, a 66-unit affordable housing building in West Philadelphia, to transform an underused area of the building's parking lot into an urban garden.  Residents offered input on the garden’s design and creation through multiple onsite community meetings with the students and instructors.

Seating element detail.

The design purposefully incorporates wide pathways to promote physical activity by encouraging residents to spend time strolling in the garden.

During the first 10 weeks of the course students worked in teams to research and generate design concepts.

An early space planning development sketch (above) gradually developed into the final site plan (below).

Community garden plan.

Seating system development sketches

Material order calculation notes

Mixing and pouring concrete for the outdoor furniture.

Prototype assembly of the planter system modules

Prototype development

A detail of one of our first full-scale mock-ups