Casa Marianella

Austin Texas

Project Phase: CD

Casa Marianella is a non-profit that provides essential shelter and support for immigrants and refugees. Their Posada Esperanza campus exclusively serves women and children who have traveled to Austin from myriad countries across the Americas and  Africa. Casa promotes self-sufficiency by offering these women and their families a temporary home and supportive services to place children in school, find jobs, complete paperwork, and adjust to living in a new culture after often-traumatic journeys.

FORGE Landscape Architecture is leading the design of the Posada campus landscape which includes a new community building by Low Design Office, various gathering areas, a children’s play space, and a central garden composed of culturally desired edible plants.

The garden is sited between an existing residence and the new community building, welcoming residents from across the campus to gather in a restorative environment. As the central community gathering space, it demonstrates the potential of edible gardens as multifunctional, multigenerational spaces and the importance of food in preserving cultural heritage.

The design of the garden uses strategies of syntropic agroforestry, a theory and practice developed by Ernst Götsch in southern Bahia, Brazil, that engages the dynamics of plant growth, species interactions, and successional processes. A layered understory of vegetables, herbs, and medicinal plants, is combined with an overstory of fruit trees, including loquat, mulberry, mexican plum, pomegranite, fig, and persimmon.

A workshop with residents provided feedback and guidance on plants that have cultural significance across countries of origin. Many of the plants that residents desired for cooking and medicinal use are suitable for the climate and soils of Austin, Texas and have proven resilience in a changing climate. These beloved plants were integrated with plant species endemic to the Blackland Prairie ecosystem to ensure critical pollinator habitat.