Conceptualizing a Prayer Garden

Early Concept Sketches

When three local Catholic parishes combined into one and wanted to celebrate the union by creating a Prayer Garden, they commissioned DxDempsey to design it for them.  They wanted to incorporate religious articles from each of the churches into the garden in order to memorialize the parishes that closed.  We were honored to take on the challenge!

Station of the Cross

The garden is to include an outdoor stations of the cross, a holy rosary walk, some statuary, a grove of trees and a powerful focal piece that includes a grotto and a stained glass window that once graced the wall behind the altar of one of the parishes.  We used the pilasters of the adjacent church as the organizing element of the garden from which paths are transcribed between the church and rectory.  Benches offer a place for a moment of repose and reflection. 

In order to begin the process, we photographed, measured and took stock of the religious articles available from each parish.  

Final Concept Plan

We also took some photos and overall dimensions of the site and surrounding structures, then transferred that information to CAD, our computer drafting program. 

Now we were ready to begin to design.  Several concepts were developed--each drawing inspiration from the site, the religious articles and from the symbolic tradition of Catholicism.  This was an iterative process that continued until a final concept was defined and refined.  Finally, we created a photo-realistic 3-D rendering in order to fully illustrate the concept and inspire the parishioners.    

Final Concept Rendering

So that's a little bit about our design process!