Sacred Places
Stillmeadow Community Fellowship
A ten-acre urban forest holding three distinct forest types.
WHERE
Baltimore, MD
PARTNER INSTITUTION
Stillmeadow Community Fellowship
Visit
Where it is
5110 Frederick Ave, Baltimore, MD
What happens here
The forest gives the community a meditative space, wildlife a habitat, and visitors an education in onsite stormwater management and sustainable landscaping. The US Forest Service runs a series of test plots here assessing regrowth and reforestation capacity.
HOW IT CAME TO BE
Five nodes in ten acres.
01
The Need
The PeacePark sits in the heart of the Beechfield and Irvington neighborhoods in southwest Baltimore. Much of the ten acres is very steep and therefore inaccessible, so part of the design work was finding ways to open portions of the site to people with limited mobility.
02
The Vision
Nature Sacred and Stillmeadow ran a community-centred master planning process with intentional nodes and areas of discovery. They brought together an ever-growing list of partner organizations and held a number of small-group "meanders" through the site to familiarize community members with the space and invite them into it. Five areas were selected through that engagement to become Sacred Place nodes within the larger Sacred Place of the PeacePark, each with its own stated design intention.
03
The Transformation
The masterplan itself is the output at this level: it reviews the origin of the PeacePark idea, the need for a plan, the site's existing physical and ecological conditions, and the engagement process, then details the five nodes, then sets out stewardship priorities — reforestation, signage and education, accessibility and universal design, ongoing maintenance including the Firesoul Network, and volunteer priorities.
