Louis D. Brown Peace Institute

The Louis D. Brown Peace Institute (LDBPI) was founded by Clementina Chéry in 1993 after the tragic death by gun violence of her 13 year old son, Louis, and for over thirty years has carried on Louis’s legacy of peacemaking work in Roxbury, across Boston, and around the nation. The new Center for Healing, Teaching, and Learning will house LDBPI and provide services in a beautiful center-block landscape, serving as an oasis at the heart of the neighborhood most impacted by gun violence in Boston. Throughout the building, warm wood materials announce community and gathering spaces, opportunities for biophilia and connections to nature are maximized, and all are cared for with accessible all-gender restrooms, trauma-informed materials and spaces, and supportive intergenerational interactions. 

Aggregating the form and translating the material logics of Boston’s iconic triple-decker houses, the Center welcomes visitors through a lantern-like glass gasket arrived at by a Memorial Community Path that serves as a transitional decompression zone. The first floor hosts a library, sacred space, learning center, community kitchen, multipurpose community room, café, and a welcoming front porch connected to a multi-use forecourt able to host a broad range of events. A double height lobby leads to Louis’s Room, an interactive and interpretive exhibit and activation space designed to both memorialize Louis’s life and legacy and invite young people to imagine their role in peacemaking for future generations. Upstairs, Counseling and Wellness wings invite guests to find peace and restoration through therapy, yoga, and LDBPI’s signature miniatures therapy, and Nonna’s Room, a space for community elders, is paired with a center for teens. The third floor houses administrative, office, and meeting space under skylights and vaulted ceilings, and a robust makerspace supports LDBPI’s thriving arts-based Generation Peace youth programming, paired with a VR/Media Studio below.