Introduction

For this project, I needed to find a site that was already situated in a quaint and inviting area somewhat taken aback from urban development. My client Paul Soniat, the director of the New Orleans Botanical Gardens, has taken interest in transforming these gardens for a totally different usage and additive for the community. I decided to transform the Botanical Gardens property in the famous New Orleans City Park, into a rustic and homey non-profit spiritual healing retreat through a main use of animal assisted therapy for victims of Cancer. The Botanical Gardens site was a perfect location in Louisiana for this kind of business. Although it is located in a major part of mid-city New Orleans, it is taken aback from the chaos and urbanized feel due to its peaceful remedy of countless gardens and greenery surrounding it. The Botanical Gardens already holds the Conservatory of the Two Sisters, the Pavilion of the Two Sisters, the Garden Study Center and the Lath House with which the interiors will be re-designed to allow this non-profit organization to soar. Soniat wants to keep the surrounding gardens and recreation intact along with the Victorian exterior elements but repurpose part of the exterior of the Conservatory and the interiors. The users of the space will be the short term cancer patients, the employees keeping the facilities running, and have a designated area for kenneling rescued dogs, but still will be open to the public to continue to create revenue and enjoyment for the surrounding community. The guests will be cancer victims and their companions who are not bed bound but are independently mobile who is under-going treatment at the local New Orleans hospitals. These are people that most likely don’t have access to affordable healthcare possibly due to their long term medical history that have kept them from working. They have been put in a position of financial hardship where they need a place to stay during their treatment, and can come here and receive their treatments at the local hospitals, and during their stay, can also receive spiritual healing of the heart and soul through Animal Assisted Therapy and other selected services provided by Spirit Gardens. Animal-assisted therapy has been shown to improve depression and oxygen saturation in patients undergoing chemotherapy. It may also help to reduce “psychological distress” in cancer victims and their families, and help facilitate the healing process. Spirit Gardens will kennel a selection of rescued dogs and pair them up with the patients staying here where they will spend time interacting in the hopes of rescuing one another. The “Spirit” of Spirit Gardens will be centrally located in the glass dome of the former Conservatory of the Two Sisters, which will showcase a butterfly aviary. The new Spirit Gardens property is located at Victory Avenue New Orleans, Louisiana 70124. It encompasses 12 acres of land in City Park where it is tucked away behind the New Orleans Museum of Art and connecting Sculpture Garden. Free parking is located along Victory Avenue and in the Tennis Center parking lot. The location is convenient to all that City Park has to offer including the Equestrian center, countless sport and recreation areas, boating, walking, and biking paths, and the gardens that make up the majority of City Park. This space is designed to furthermore help develop the image of New Orleans to be a destination spot for fun and relaxation but to also give a new stance on the non-profit world and how it can benefit and thrive in a community such as City Park and its surrounding area.