Within her first few days at USC, Anya Jiménez discovered the budding USC Peace Garden through a workshop hosted by founder and associate professor of clinical occupational therapy Camille Dieterle and planted some of the first seeds that would go on to form the garden. 

On Saturday, nearly four years later, in a completely different place, Jiménez and a handful of other USC community members woke up early to plant the first seeds at the Peace Garden’s new location on the lawn outside Kerckhoff Hall. 

“I was devastated when [the Peace Garden] got torn down, but to see that it’s found a new home … it’s a really nice way to close out my four years here by doing the same thing that I did four years ago, and starting to plant something new for people in the community [at] USC,” said Jiménez, a senior majoring in writing for screen and television.

USC’s Real Estate and Asset Management Leasing team sold the Peace Garden’s original lot on June 30, 2025, three years after the garden’s founding. The University surveyed students, staff, faculty and community members on whether they would prefer the garden be moved to Kerckhoff Hall’s lawn or to Jefferson Building’s quad, a smaller on-campus location. 

On Nov. 13, 2025, Mick Dalrymple, USC’s chief sustainability officer, and Julie McLaughlin Gray, associate chair for academic, faculty and student affairs in the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, announced in a meeting with campus media that Kerckhoff Hall had been chosen as the new location. 

When the garden was relocated, former Peace Garden interns expressed concerns about ensuring that the new location would remain accessible to South Central community members. Dieterle said the new location would be even more accessible to the community than its former location on Shrine Place, citing Kerckhoff Hall’s foot traffic and permanently open gates. 

“Anyone can come anytime to just relax and enjoy the space, which I’m really excited about,” Dieterle said. “It’s more accessible on that front. And then I think of it as a little more accessible just by the location, because we’re off of Adams, and this is a busier street — the previous location was on Shrine Place, which was a residential street that got a little less foot traffic — so it’s a little more visible here.”

On Saturday morning, Dieterle said the volunteers were using a method called bio-tilling, which uses temporary plants — such as fava beans, which introduce nitrogen to the soil, or daikon radishes, which break up the soil with their roots — to get the garden ready for permanent plants.

“This soil that we’re working with today, it’s very compacted and dried out and a little bit dead, nothing’s been growing in it for a long time. So we are bringing it back to life,”  Dieterle said. “We’re also going to plant just some flowers and grasses, so that it looks cute in the meantime.” 

The new Peace Garden will have multiple plots on the Kerckhoff Hall lawn, including one by the north entrance and adjacent to the parking garage. Dieterle said additional picnic tables will be added to the area by the garage, as well as screen plants to hide the cars and make the space feel more green. The large field used for events will remain untouched. 

Anne Skold, the new design intern for the Peace Garden and a master’s student studying landscape architecture and urbanism, said the design process included conducting a “sun study” to determine which areas receive the most and least sun, which she used to determine where native plants would thrive. 

Skold said she discussed the new design with former Peace Garden visitors, and her next step was to send information on the proposed design to community members to receive feedback. 

“I would love to see a space where everyone can enjoy [the garden],” Skold said. “Anyone who wants to come will have a space to really just sit. We’re hoping to have seating areas where people can just take it all in and take a moment for peace and quiet.”

Jiménez said she was excited for the garden to become a space for people in the USC and South Central community to connect with nature and meet their neighbors. She said it’s especially important in an urban area such as Los Angeles, and she was glad the welcoming atmosphere of the garden remained the same even as the location changed.

“It’s still just a lot of us who don’t really know how to use shovels, just digging around and trying to make things work. The spirit of it is exactly the same,” Jiménez said. “That’s what makes me feel the best about this, Camille is still at the helm of it, and it’s still students who have never gardened before, or who are really interested in native wildflowers, but know nothing about vegetables, and just coming together and making it happen.”