Geckle Memorial Garden

A courtyard where women can rest and children are welcome, at Marian House Independence Place.

WHERE

Baltimore, MD

SETTING

Neighborhood

PARTNER INSTITUTION

Marian House

Visit

Where it is

4105 Old York Road, Baltimore, MD

What happens here

Women come to the courtyard for respite, and residents gather on the stadium seating. Children follow the stepping stone loop and find the slide at the end of it. The statue of St. Joseph draws their curiosity. The bench turns out to be a good place for blowing bubbles.

Find this Sacred Place

Community members adding notes to a wall of garden photos during a Geckle Memorial Garden planning session

HOW IT CAME TO BE

Not a playground, and not off limits.

Children running along the brick path past a bench in the finished Geckle Memorial Garden

Fenced patch of grass beside a stone building before the Geckle Memorial Garden was built

Drag to see the transformation.

The Need

Independence Place is a former school building, now 22 units of permanent supportive housing with community spaces, a lobby, and staff offices, serving the women and children Marian House supports. Three spots on the site were going unused: a courtyard, a small patio, and a tot lot. The courtyard had been designed once already, then developed significant underground problems that forced a return to it.

The Vision

Staff, women, and children all took part. A design advisor ran an introduction activity using PLAYCE methodology at the first steering committee meeting. Residents and staff annotated what they wanted to see on their campus at the first charrette; the children who came "cooked" leaves and gave their input in other creative forms. What emerged was a specific and slightly unusual brief: somewhere women could seek respite, where children would feel welcome without it becoming a dedicated play space. The courtyard was named first priority of the three.

The Transformation

The courtyard kept pieces of its earlier self. Bricks engraved for the previous iteration of the garden were reused along the entry. The statue of St. Joseph stayed. Stadium seating was built onto the existing porch, increasing how many people can use the space at once and how many ways they can use it. A crescent-shaped brick pad seats the bench, and the single row of brick around it doubles as a surprise play element. Clematis trails up a wooden archway that gates the site, enclosing it safely while keeping it welcoming. Off to one side a stepping stone loop offers sensory delights for children, with a bright blue slide extending from the porch as its culmination. String lights zigzag overhead.

How a Sacred Place comes to be →

WHO TENDS IT