Healing garden for a veteran wins national award

Harvest Home -  Julie Melear

The Wounded Warrior home, built for the Solar Decathalon, with its award-winning landscape design

George Washington University graduate students Julie Melear, Janet Conroy, and Mary Sper’s landscape design for HARVEST HOME, a Wounded Warrior home built for a veteran, has won the Gold Award in outdoor design from the Association for Professional Landscape Design (APLD). The house was designed and built by college students competing in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, which challenges collegiate teams to design solar powered houses that are cost effective, energy efficient, and attractive.

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HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2014 – Catch the Earlybird Special!

Royal Terns by Henry Domke

Royal terns. Photo by Henry Domke, www.henrydomke.com

What: HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2014
When: November 15-18, 2014
Where: San Diego, CA

I always look forward to HEALTHCARE DESIGN, the annual conference produced by Vendome Healthcare Media and the Center for Health Design. There’s only one problem: It’s too good! There are always too many sessions that I want attend. Ah, the agony of choice. Not such a bad thing, really. And this year, it’s in sunny San Diego. The facility tours are sure to be excellent, and the education sessions look great – below are a few that I hope to attend, and one I’ll be speaking at (“Therapeutic Landscapes for Specific Patient Groups”) with my book co-author, Clare Cooper Marcus.

Earlybird registration is open for another two weeks (ends 8/8), so get on it.
Hope to see you there!

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(Almost) Wordless Wednesday, 7/16/14

Water lily photo by Henry Domke

Water lily photo by Henry Domke, www.henrydomke.com

“Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
– Albert Einstein

 

Landscapes for people with cancer – A (former) patient’s point of view. Guest post by Kevan Busa

Busa at lake

Kevan at the lake.

Kevan Busa first contacted me in August of 2012. He was in his last year as an undergraduate in landscape architect at SUNY-ESF, and had been excited about the upcoming semester abroad program in Barcelona, Spain…until he was diagnosed with Leukemia. When he emailed me, he was in his fourth out of five rounds of chemotherapy, and was scheduled to be in Buffalo for three months to get a bone marrow transplant. He wrote, “I talked to my school and doctors and i think that i am going to be doing an independent study of healing spaces while i am there.” Seriously? You plan on doing research while you recover from chemo and a bone marrow transplant? Wow. And he did! His research was subsequently published in the June, 2013 issue of Landscape Architecture magazine. I asked him to write a guest post for the TLN Blog, and he graciously agreed. The post is below.

Looking back at by far the hardest year of my life, I have realized the potential that I have to share my information with the professional world and especially people interested in healing spaces. There is more information being added every day that will help so many people in the future and am honored to be adding my research and experience to the Therapeutic Landscapes Network.

I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and went through a Bone Marrow Transplant within the past year. There was a lot to take in when I got sick and to think about, especially life. Being a landscape architecture student at the State University of New York: College of Environmental Science and Forestry, the topic of healing spaces from within a hospital setting was always on my mind. I went through chemotherapy rounds as the world around me was enjoying summer and the outdoors. All I wanted to do was to be outside when I wasn’t getting treatment.

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The first therapeutic garden in Romania!

Planting in Romania healing garden

Landscape engineer Nicsanu Marcela recently posted a photo on our TLN Facebook page with an image of raised flower beds and this caption: “First therapeutic garden in Romania!” That was pretty exciting. I emailed her to ask whether she’d like to do a guest blog post, and she agreed. Here is her post:

The first therapeutic garden in Romania opened its doors in June 2014, at Mocrea Psychiatric Hospital in Arad County. This first garden opened the way for horticultural therapy, a healing method used in almost some psychiatric hospitals in Western Europe and the USA.

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Wordless Wednesday, 7/9/14

Photo by Henry Domke at www.henrydomke.com

Photo by Henry Domke at www.henrydomke.com

Happy July! Thanks to Henry Domke for this beautiful image.

 

Enter now! Landscape Architecture for Healthcare Communities awards

Smilow Cancer Hospital healing garden

The stream at Yale-New Haven’s Smilow Cancer Hospital. Design by Towers Golde. Photo by Naomi Sachs

2013 was a momentous year for landscape architecture in healthcare design: It was the first year that Healthcare Design and Environments for Aging held the Landscape Architecture for Healthcare Communities Awards.

The projects were chosen by two different panels of jurors – one for Acute Care (Healthcare Design) and one for Senior Living (Environments for Aging and Long-Term Living). Acute Care and Senior Living project award winners were featured in the December digital issues of Healthcare Design and EFA magazines. Acute Care award winners were also featured in the May/June 2014 print edition and will be honored in November at HEALTHCARE DESIGN14 in San Diego, CA. Senior Living project winners were honored at the Environments for Aging conference in May.

And here’s more good news: They’re doing it again! Submission are due for both categories on July 14, 2014 so get busy with your applications.

This is a terrific opportunity for landscape architects and healthcare facilities with successful therapeutic landscapes to showcase their work, and for everyone else to see the best examples of how it should be done. (more…)

Wordless Wednesday, 5/7/14

Tulips in Dublin, Ireland. Photo by James Westwater

Tulips in Dublin, Ireland. Photo by James Westwater

Happy Spring! And for me, happy end of the semester! Looking forward to catching up with blog posts now that it’s (technically, though dissertation research continues…) “summer vacation.”

 

Two fantastic upcoming events at The Hort

Sometimes I really wish I still lived in New York. April is one of those times, because the Horticultural Society of New York is putting on not one but two brilliant events that I would not miss if I didn’t live 2,000 miles away.

Event #1: Healing Nature Forum: Horticulture as Therapy

This event features a stellar line-up of speakers, including a keynote by Virginia Burt, Principal of Visionscapes Landscape Architects, Inc.

Visit the HSNY website for more details.

Horticultural Society of NY Healing Nature Forum

Event #2: The exhibition, By leaves or play of sunlight. John Cage: Artist and Naturalist

John Cage, The Hort

April 2 – May 16, 2014
Curated by Chris Murtha

Opening Reception:
Wednesday, April 2nd, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
The Horticultural Society of New York
148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10018

Presented with the John Cage Trust and the New York Mycological Society

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The Chicago Botanic Garden Healthcare Garden Design Certificate Program – Register now!

Tulips at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Tulips at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Photo by Naomi Sachs

Registration is now open for the Chicago Botanic Garden Healthcare Garden Design Certificate Program, and for the seminar, “Gardens That Heal: A Prescription for Wellness.”

Eight-day professional development certificate
May 14 – 21, 2014
Wednesday – Wednesday
Early registration fee paid/postmarked by April 4, 2014: $2,995
Fee after April 4, 2014: $3,495

Gardens That Heal: A Prescription for Wellness
One-Day Seminar
May 14, 2014
Wednesday
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Member fee $129
Nonmember fee $149, or $129 before April 4, 2014

Online registration is unavailable 24 hours prior to the class start date. You may still register by calling (847) 835-8261.

The eight-day Certificate Program includes case studies, group projects, field trips, lectures, and instruction from experts from healthcare garden-related professions. Working in multidisciplinary teams that reflect the real world of healthcare garden design, your learning will be reinforced through tours of healthcare facilities in greater Chicago.

The program begins with a special full-day seminar on “Gardens That Heal: A Prescription for Wellness,” designed as a starting point for those participating in the full program, and as an introduction for professionals not requiring full certification.

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