New Gathering Space at Casa Marianella

Founded in 1986, Casa Marianella is an Austin nonprofit providing shelter and support for asylum-seeking refugees and other immigrants. Low Design Office (LowDO), FORGE Landscape Architecture, and Fort Structures have come together to design a new community dwelling, garden, and playscape for the organization’s Posada Esperanza campus in East Austin.

Posada Esperanza serves women and children from countries across the Americas and Africa who have fled domestic or cultural violence. Its programs promote self-sufficiency by offering a temporary home and case management services to assist with schooling, employment, and adjusting to life in a new culture after an often-traumatic journey.

The architects at LowDO led a series of onsite engagement workshops that used visual cards and translators to facilitate conversations with staff and residents about their experiences and priorities for the design. 

The result is a structure and landscape that tie together the four existing homes on the site by providing a much-needed, shared gathering space.  Modest bedrooms upstairs will increase Posada’s capacity, while an adaptable “great room” below will connect directly to an outdoor covered porch and landscape, maximizing opportunities for gathering and connecting while providing flexible areas for services and tutoring. 

FORGE’s landscape design includes a central community agroforestry garden featuring edible and medicinal plants identified by current residents as culturally desirable. Adjacent to the garden is a nature-based playscape to encourage creativity and exploration for children. 

The design integrates multicultural elements throughout, striving to create a cost-effective building that can come to symbolize “home” for diverse groups of women and children. Shady overhangs, semi-conditioned spaces, and climate-resilient plantings all contribute to the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of the project, which is being funded by community donations and aims to break ground early this year. 

For more information, visit casamarianella.org.