Overview
This project started with a conversation with my mom. At the end of last summer, she asked me to build her two raised garden beds because her back problems were making gardening, her favorite hobby, feel more and more like a chore. The idea that she might one day have to give up something she loves stuck with me — and got me thinking about the broader issue: for a lot of people, especially seniors, the physical demands of gardening put the hobby completely out of reach.
The Real-World Issue
Gardening is worth fighting for as a hobby. Beyond the obvious enjoyment, it offers real mental and physical health benefits — from stress relief and improved focus to reduced blood pressure and increased vitamin D. It also brings a sense of community. Losing access to it is not a small thing.
I reached out to the Mount Washington Healthy Active Living Community Center in Pittsburgh to learn more. Speaking with the center's director, Shawn Thomas (pictured with me above), I found out that they had actually shut down their garden because the seniors couldn't keep up with the physical demands anymore. He told me there were residents who used to garden and had to give it up, and plenty more who would love to try it if the barrier to entry wasn't so high. That conversation made me determined to make accessible gardening at the Mount Washington HAL a reality.
My Solution
My solution was a wheelchair-accessible raised garden bed designed around one central idea: seated access. Leg cut-outs underneath the bed let standard chairs and wheelchairs pull right up to the edge, so users can reach across the entire surface without ever leaving their seat. This design addresses the full spectrum of physical ability, from someone dealing with back pain all the way to a full-time wheelchair user.
I also put a lot of thought into soil depth. The sides of the bed sit at 6 inches deep, suitable for herbs, leafy greens, strawberries, and more. The center section goes to 12 inches, opening up medium-rooted plants like tomatoes, peppers, carrots, cucumbers, and squash. That range gives users the same creative freedom as a traditional garden. The top surface sits at a comfortable 34 inches off the ground, and at Mr. Thomas's request, I added wheels so the bed could be moved around the facility while construction is ongoing in their yard area.
Design Refinement and Construction
The design went through meaningful refinement before we built it. My TA, Jay Leinhauser, devoted a lot of time to going through the initial design step by step with me, making sure every idea could actually be built. That process led to the addition of more structural supports to handle the weight of wet soil, a drainage system with a slight slope built into the bases and holes drilled throughout, and finalized material choices: 4x4s for supports, 2x8s for the side walls and central base, and 2x12s for the side bases.
After the design was locked in, Jay and I built it out, working through the usual hiccups that come with any bigger project. We had to attach the bottom supports on-site at the center since the fully assembled bed wouldn't fit in the car.
Impact
When I delivered the finished bed and walked some of the residents through the idea, the response was everything I had hoped for. The seniors were genuinely overjoyed that the project had been built with them in mind, and everyone I talked to said they wanted to give it a try — including people who had never gardened before. The bed is set to be fully up and running this spring once the center gets the soil and Pittsburgh's weather cooperates.
The potential doesn't stop at Mount Washington either. There are 12 Healthy Active Living Community Centers across Pittsburgh, and this project only touched one of them. That leaves a lot of room for similar projects to make a real impact across the city.
This project was a meaningful reminder of what engineering in service of others actually looks like. What started as a conversation with my mom turned into something real for a whole community of people. A single well-considered design can give people back something they thought they had lost.
