blog « Therapeutic Landscapes Network

Paynseville Area Hospital Foundation Meditation Garden

October 4, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Jennifer Shinn, Director and Volunteer Coordinator for the Paynesville Area Health Care System recently wrote in about the hospital’s new Meditation Garden, a wonderful example of grassroots community effort. Here’s what she had to say:

“We are a small healthcare facility that has received such wonderful gifts from community members and our landscape designer to make the first phase of our Meditation Garden possible – all through donations! I would like to share a ‘before’ photo so you can better understand the full transformation that has happened here in Paynesville.

Our staff, healthcare recipients and visitors use this newly reformed space everyday! Although our plants are ‘newbies,’ the space provides so much more than the original mission sought out to do! When you visit you are taken away from wherever you are at in your day and brought into a place where you would envision you could revive your inner soul.

We are so grateful that philanthropy has created this first phase of our Meditation Garden and we are also grateful for Brian Hamer’s (owner/designer, Rock-Heads MN, Inc., www.rock-heads.net) vision for our space. The pictures do not fully capture the beauty… We have postings on our website at http://www.pahcs.com/category.php?disid=130.”

The Paynesville Area Health Care System is located in Paynesville, MN at 200 West First Street.
You can contact Jennifer Shinn directly for more information at 320-243-7938, or email JShinn@pahcs.com

Open Spaces Sacred Places – New Book from TKF Foundation

October 1, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

So I’m looking on my own blog (this one) and one of the Google ads – “Open Spaces Sacred Places” – catches my eye. I’m not supposed to click on my own Google ads but this one I couldn’t resist, and low and behold, it’s a new book published by the TKF Foundation. This nonprofit’s mission is “to provide the opportunity for a deeper human experience by supporting the creation of public greenspaces that offer a temporary place of sanctuary, encourage reflection, provide solace, and engender peace.” The book is called Open Spaces Sacred Places, by Tom Stoner and Carolyn Rapp, and you can order it from the TKF website. I don’t have a copy yet, but am looking forward to getting my hands on one and reviewing it for this blog. Or if anyone else out there has read it and would like to write a guest review, I’m all for that, too.

I come across information for this blog and for the Therapeutic Landscapes Database in all sorts of ways. I’m thrilled when people send me stuff, which happens often. But there’s also a lot of internet surfing, following one winding river and taking its many tributaries and just seeing where you end up. Today, I ended up with the TKF’s new book. They’ve been listed on the TLD links page for years now, and I’m glad to see they’re still doing great work.

Evidence-Based Design: Definition and Discussion

| by Naomi Sachs

The Center for Health Design is at the forefront of getting people to think and talk seriously about “evidence-based design,” which they define as “the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes.” In other words, designing places (buildings, gardens, and other spaces) for specific uses and specific populations based not just on one’s intuition or innate design sense, but on solid research. This becomes especially important when designing for people whose health and well-being is compromised, such as in hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities.

Here’s an interesting blog posting from the CHD about this definition, with some great comments and discussion.

What do you think? Is this definition sufficient? What would you add, or how would you change it?

New Article from InformeDesign’s Newsletter

September 25, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Quan Yin Statue at the Huntington Garden’s

Liu Fang Yuan, The Garden of Flowering Fragrance, Los Angeles, CA

Photo by Naomi Sachs

A new article from InformeDesign‘s latest issue of Implications, by Jeff Rosenfeld, Ph.D., “Senior Housing Globalized,” discusses changes, trends, and recent developments in senior housing in China, Japan, India, and elsewhere in the Pacific Rim.

The article includes some great images and discussion of outdoor spaces in senior housing, a useful bibliography, and even a list of related research summaries.

Back to School: Healthcare Garden Design Certification Program at Chicago Botanic Garden

September 18, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

When designers and people in health and human services ask me what they can do to get better educated about healthcare garden design, I usually point them to the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Healthcare Garden Design Professional Development Certificate Program. One of my early posts, “Education in Healthcare Design,” listed it, along with other good programs, but CBG is worth mentioning again because registration for 2009 (May 6-13) is now open, and because Anne Hunt, a Chicago-based writer and recent graduate of the program, recently wrote an article about it and has just sent me the pdf, which you can link to HERE. To see more images of the Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital Rooftop Garden mentioned in Hunt’s article, go to the greenroofs.com site.

Here’s a little teaser from Anne Hunt’s article:

CERTIFICATION COURSE OFFERS INSIGHT AND INSPIRATION

The Chicago Botanic Garden’s Healthcare Garden Design certification course offers a unique opportunity to understand the multi-faceted nature of healthcare garden design and expand and improve professional services.

The intensive 8-day program brings together landscape design professionals, architects and interior designers, therapists, nurses and recreation specialists, healthcare marketers, administrators and consultants. Specialists in all of these areas share research, experience, business savvy and a passion for healing gardens with participants, who themselves bring a variety of backgrounds to the table.

“Therapeutic Gardens of the Delaware Valley,” ASLA Field Session

September 17, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Medford Leas CCRC, Medford, NJ (Design for Generations)

Once again, P. Annie Kirk of the Acer Institute and Jack Carman of Design for Generations have put together what looks to be an excellent educational field session in Philadelphia, PA, site of this year’s ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) annual meeting.

Organized through ASLA’s Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network, the field session will be on October 3rd; if you’re attending the meeting and you haven’t signed up yet, do it soon – the field session sold out ahead of time last year!

From the Acer Institute site, where you can go to get more information and images:

“The on-site, interactive tour will engage design professionals, residents, staff, administrators, and historians. We will explore issues, trends, resources, and successful collaborations in design, implementation, and programming of therapeutic gardens.”

Petition to the Surgeon General to Promote Outdoor Time

September 5, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Photo courtesy National Wildlife Federation

Wow, you know there’s a movement afoot when the National Wildlife Federation starts circulating a petition urging the Surgeon General to “promote the health benefits of daily, unstructured outdoor play for children and families.” I got the news about this petition from the Green Hour, a website and blog from the NWF encouraging families to get their kids outside in “unstructured play and interaction with the natural world,” even if just for an hour a day. I signed up a few months ago, and every week they email me news and great ideas about getting kids (and even grown-ups) outside.

Must be part of Richard Louv’s “No Child Left Inside” campaign, which I wrote about back in February and March (see archives on the right). Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, really touched a nerve in this country, and has since ignited a powerful movement. If you haven’t seen his organization’s website yet, go there now: the Children and Nature Network. But come back here after to sign the petition!

This is an exciting time for people in landscape architecture, city planning, public health, and education (to mention just a few professions) – it seems that the public is finally catching on to the idea that maybe closing our doors and hearts to the outside natural world isn’t such a good thing (as comfortable as that AC is…), and maybe our kids are missing out on something that many of us took for granted but benefited from in ways that we are only beginning to understand.

I spent most of my childhood playing in the Nipmuck woods and Fenton River, both walking distance from my house, in rural Connecticut; these experiences instilled in me a deep love of and respect for nature, and I’m sure had a lot to do with my choice of landscape architecture as a profession.

If you want to sign the petition, click HERE, and if this is a cause you believe in, then spread the word!

Here are a couple of excerpts:

We the undersigned urge you to issue a Surgeon General “Call to Action” to promote the health benefits of daily, unstructured outdoor play for children and families.

Regardless of age, being in nature helps us lower our stress levels, get exercise and relax our minds. For children, contact with green space and natural settings improves their ability to learn, hones their agility and balance and can significantly calm those with anxiety and mood disorders. And, a childhood connection with the outdoors can lead to a lifelong ethic of respect for a clean and healthy environment.

Today’s kids and families are missing out on nature. Recent research shows that the amount of time U.S. children spend outside has declined by 50 percent in the last two decades alone! Meanwhile, the rate of childhood obesity has skyrocketed, and children now spend 44.5 hours a week in front of some type of electronic screen. We find this trend, which goes by the name, “nature-deficit” alarming. Unfortunately, many Americans are unaware of nature-deficit and the implications for their own health.

From Farm to…Healthcare Center

September 3, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

A farmers market at a hospital? To many of us, this idea seems as incongruous as hospital gowns that leave you with a shred of dignity. Still, the trend is catching on. It’s another example of several movements – patient-centered care,* the nutritional and obesity crisis, and the “locavore” movement (see my post from 8/27) – converging to create some meaningful and healthy change.

The Project for Public Spaces has featured farmers markets, including the Kaiser Farmers Markets (pictured above) as places that build community, facilitate local economic sustainability, and improve public health. Dr. Preston Maring spearheaded the campaign to bring farmers markets to Kaiser Permanente in California, which began in 2003. Here’s a nice article and photo essay about it, in the Journal of Life Sciences. That success has encouraged similar models all over the country, from Indiana to South Carolina to New York.

To me, farmers markets at hospitals and other health care facilities are another good example (though perhaps slightly more abstract) of “landscapes for health.” See my postings from 8/23 and 8/24 for a discussion about that term and the term “healing gardens.”

If you’re interested in getting a farmers market going at a hospital near you, read this article, “Farmers’ Markets and CSAs on Hospital Grounds.” published by Healthcare Without Harm, for a primer.

*I linked “patient-centered care” above to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, but if you google the term, you can find many more examples. If you want to get the feeling rather than just the words, go to the Planetree site, www.planetree.org.

Healing Gardens in Prisons

September 2, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Prison garden at Elmore County Correctional Facility, AL

Photo courtesy Alabama Department of Corrections

Amy Lindemuth, who submitted her thesis for the Therapeutic Landscapes Database References page (see previous post), also recently published an article in the Journal of Mediterranean Ecology on healing gardens in prisons: “Designing Therapeutic Environments for Inmates and Prison Staff in the United States: Precedents and Contemporary Applications.” This is a really interesting area of the field of landscape and healthcare design that I would like to delve into more, maybe eventually giving it its own page on the TLD. The prison industrial complex, as Angela Davis calls it, has grown astronomically in recent decades, and access to gardens and gardening has been found to have a positive effect on those “inside.”

Last year, Clare Cooper Marcus wrote a great piece about UC Berkeley Landscape Architecture students’ work on a prison hospice garden in Vacaville, CA (first published in Frameworks, the UC Berkeley College of Enviornmental Design Alumni Magazine, Fall 2006, pp. 10-15) which was reprinted in the ASLA Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network 2007 Newsletter. Scroll to page 6 to read that article.

After a quick search on the web, I found two interesting articles to include here.

One is from the Human Flower Project, titled “Flowers in Purgatory,” from July 2006. That’s where the above photo is from.

The second is from the TKF Foundation website, one of their Sacred Space Locations: The Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore, MD.

And finally, if you’re interested in this subject, the book Doing Time in the Garden: Life Lessons Through Prison Horticulture, by James Jiler, should definitely be on your reading list.

Wrote a Thesis? Part II

August 29, 2008 | by Naomi Sachs

Back in March, I put a call out to graduates requesting theses that I could list on the TLD References page. I’ve gotten a few responses, and have found a couple of my own in my travels as well. These, as well as some of the abstracts, can be found in alphabetical order on the TLD References page, along with previously-listed theses. Additions to this list are always welcome!

Hebert, Bonnie B. (2003). “Design Guidelines of a Therapeutic Garden for Autistic Children.” Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis for Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College.

Click here or on the title above to link to a pdf of the thesis.

Kovary, Myra M. (1999). “Healing Landscapes: Design Guidelines for Mental Health Facilities.” Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis, Cornell University.

A similar version of Kovary’s thesis was published with the same title as Chapter 12 of Shoemaker, Candice A. (Ed.) (2002). Interaction by Design: Bringing People and Plants Together for Health and Well-Being. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Press.

If you’d like an electronic copy of this thesis, contact the author: mmk29@cornell.edu.

Lindemuth, Amy (2006). “SOU Courtyard Garden: Designing a Therapeutic Environment for Corrections Staff and Mentally Ill Offenders.” Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis, University of Washington 2006.

This is a design thesis and includes design of a real site at a prison in WA state with literature and historical review.

Roets, Susan (2006). “Healthcare and Landscape Architecture: Investigation and Design at an Assisted Living Home to Promote Healthy Aging.” Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY.

Click here or on the title above to link to a pdf of the thesis.

Sadler, Charles King (2007). “Design Guidelines for Effective Hospice Gardens Using Japanese Garden Principles.” Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY.

Click here or on the title above to link to a pdf of the thesis.

Vapaa, Annalisa Gartman (2002). “Healing Gardens: Creating Places for Restoration, Meditation, and Sanctuary. What are the defining characteristics that make a healing garden?” Master of Landscape Architecture Thesis for Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Click here or on the title above to link to a pdf of the thesis..