Penn State students design healing garden for families affected by gun violence

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Since 2021, landscape architecture students enrolled in LARCH 315/817: Community Design Studio in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School have been working with the community of Braddock, Pennsylvania, on ideations of various design themes. Located 10 miles east of Pittsburgh, the once-bustling steel town is now experiencing economic hardship, poverty and crime.

It was through the relationships that have been built between the community and the Department of Landscape Architecture over the years that led the Helping Out Our People (HOOP) Alliance, a grassroots organization that supports nearly 140 families who lost loved ones to gun violence in the local Woodland Hills School District, to reach out to Leann Andrews, assistant professor of landscape architecture and studio instructor, in fall 2024 about collaborating to design a healing garden for their families and the community.

Cathy Turner of the HOOP Alliance said that gun violence is not just something the HOOP Alliance advocates around; it is something that community members live with every single day.

“HOOP was born out of deep, personal loss, and from that pain came a commitment to make sure no family walks this journey alone,” she said. “We reached out because we needed more than a space; we needed a place for healing. A place where grief could breathe, where love could still be felt, and where families impacted by violence could come without explanation and simply exist.”

According to Andrews, the students’ first step in the process involved researching the scope of trauma in the community and responding with both conceptual healing designs and a design-build project for the first phase of a healing garden. Half of the students in the class worked on the healing garden design while the other section of the class, led by Sara Hadavi, assistant professor of landscape architecture, worked on a healing plan for the entire Braddock community.

In Hadavi’s section, four groups of students proposed different strategic plans for Braddock, and each strategic plan guided five conceptual design projects for ‘Healing Braddock’ as a community.

During the fall of 2025, landscape architect Daniel Winterbottom and occupational therapist Amy Wagenfield led a workshop on trauma responsive designs which, according to Andrews, “... helped our students learn how to translate the complexity of trauma into people’s needs and healing designs.”

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology Jennfier Connell, who is also a social worker, spoke to the class about primary and secondary trauma, which were also considered in the process.

Students conducted interviews with representatives from the Braddock Youth Project (BYP), For Good PGH, the Carnegie One Braddock Library, the HOOP Alliance, city and borough council members, and local business owners. They also surveyed community members and visited the area to tour the site while gathering feedback and discussing design details.

Third-year student William Donnelley, who worked on designing and building the healing garden, said the students worked hard to have an open dialogue with community members throughout the entire process.

“Up until now, all our design studio projects have been presented to people in the fields of landscape architecture and architecture, so it was very new to communicate with those outside of the field[s],” he said.

Students each designed their own plans for the site, and the strongest findings of each plan were incorporated into one final cohesive design. The Department of Landscape Architecture and the Stuckeman School’s Hamer Center for Community Design sponsored HOOP Alliance and BYP youth and staff to travel to University Park to provide feedback on the student designs and ultimately select a final design for the HOOP’s Hope and Healing Garden.

Donnelley said that without the community’s feedback, the project either would not have happened at all or would have been very generic.

“Something I kept reminding myself of throughout the process was that we were designing with — and not just for — the community,” he said. “The [community members] requested the site and had ideas about what they wanted to see, so it was our role to use our education and resources to bring together a cohesive design.”

Some of the features of the garden, which opened in December 2025, include a telephone to heaven, an angel wings photo wall, lighted arches etched with HOOP’s “We Are Not Alone” poem and a winding path with multiple entry, exit and stopping points acknowledging the nature of the non-linear and personal grief journey.

The path is also lined with wildflowers and native plants, with flowering and fruit trees and herbs to stimulate the senses. Bricks that line the path came from collapsed buildings in Braddock, showcasing the resourcefulness and resilience of the community.

The final garden design, said Turner, came from a place of collective voices from HOOP families and students from the BYP.

“It was important that the space reflects not just one story, but many,” she said. “We wanted it to feel inclusive, calming and intentional. A space where every family could find something that speaks to them, whether that is reflection, remembrance or simply a moment of peace. The design that was chosen felt aligned with our mission.”

According to Turner, the entire collaborative design process with the students felt powerful.

“It was not just about design; it was about listening. The students showed up with open hearts and a willingness to understand the weight of what this space needed to hold,” she said. “They did not rush the process or impose ideas; they sat with our stories, our emotions and our vision. That kind of engagement matters deeply to families like ours, because so often our voices are overlooked. This felt different. It felt collaborative, respectful and healing in and of itself.”

The healing garden project was supported by a faculty research grant through the College of Arts and Architecture, along with the Department of Landscape Architecture and the Hamer Center for Community Design. Materials, tools and use of space were donated by Steel City Hauling, Grow Pittsburgh, Ernst Conservation Seeds, North Creek Nurseries, the Hollander Project, Carnegie One Braddock Library, the BYP and Professor Emeritus Ken Tamminga.

The Trauma-Responsive Design Workshop was supported by the Stuckeman School’s Office of Access, Wellbeing and Equity, as well as the Department of Landscape Architecture’s Bracken Lecture Series.

Next Steps

The Penn State students returned to Braddock in late April to clean up the site and to plant and seed the area alongside youth from the BYP.

As for next steps for the HOOP’s Hope and Healing Garden, fall 2026 semester students will start on phase two of the project, which will continue the collaborative participatory process to design and construct garden enhancements that reflect what HOOP’s families need. The BYP will be the stewards of the garden, continuing to care for it in the future. This summer the youth will be painting some remaining projects in the garden and preparing for phase two of the design process.

Andrews said she hopes the students understand the power of listening and responding to a client’s desires and needs, while realizing that the landscape can be a powerful catalyst in supporting healing and trauma.

“I hope that when they got their hands dirty and realized they needed to work as a team, they felt that sense of accomplishment when their collaborative design ideas became a reality,” Andrews said.