Built Works « Therapeutic Landscapes Network

Labyrinths for Healthcare: Approach with Caution

May 29, 2015 | by Naomi Sachs

Labyrinth at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital. Photo by Clare Cooper Marcus

St. Joseph Memorial Hospital, Santa Rosa, CA. This labyrinth is appropriate for a healthcare setting since the walking route is relatively short (7-circuit); there are no overlooking windows, and vegetative screening ensures privacy; it is shaded; and a simple explanatory sign explains its use. Photo by Clare Cooper Marcus

This post might invite more invective or controversy than usual (which is usually none, so we’ll see), but it’s something important to discuss: Labyrinths are not always appropriate for healthcare gardens. When they are used, they need to be sited and designed to best benefit garden users. Clare Cooper Marcus and I discuss this issue in our book Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces and some of the text below is excerpted from Chapter 6 (p. 78).

Please understand: I have nothing against labyrinths per se. In fact, in the right place and context, I think they are wonderful and I very much enjoy walking them. The TLN has a page on labyrinths. In our chapter on Gardens for Veterans and Active Duty Personnel, we discuss how labyrinths are used in the therapeutic process (p. 210-211).

First, what is a labyrinth?
The classical labyrinth consists of a continuous path that winds in circles into a center and out again. This basic form dates from antiquity and is intended for contemplative walking. A labyrinth is sometimes erroneously referred to as a maze, which consists of a complex system of pathways between tall hedges, with the purpose of getting people lost. The aim of a maze is playful diversion, whereas the aim of the labyrinth was, and is, to offer the user a walking path of quiet reflection. See this earlier TLN Blog post for more on the distinction between labyrinths and mazes.

Labyrinth at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada

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Healing garden for a veteran wins national award

July 25, 2014 | by Naomi Sachs

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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The first therapeutic garden in Romania!

July 10, 2014 | by Naomi Sachs

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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The Enabling Garden at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital

March 9, 2014 | by Naomi Sachs

A lily pond and lush plantings make this garden an excellent place for rehab work.

Horticultural Therapy is, in a nutshell, the use of plants, gardens, and other aspects of nature to improve people’s social, spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. Check out the HT page on the TLN website, and the organizations American Horticultural Therapy Association and the Horticultural Therapy Institute for more information. The new book, Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces also has a great chapter on HT, written by the inimitable Teresia Hazen at Legacy Health in Portland, OR.

A horticultural therapist works with a client

The HT program at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital is well-established and respected in the field. Thanks to Pam Young, the Horticultural Therapist there, for this description of their program, and for the accompanying photos.

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Boston Children’s Hospital’s Prouty Garden under threat of demolition. Guest post by Clare Cooper Marcus

September 17, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

Boston Children's Hospital Prouty Garden

The Prouty Garden at Boston Children’s Hospital has served as a tranquil green urban oasis since 1956

The Prouty Garden at Boston Children’s Hospital has, for generations of patients, family members, and staff, served as a much-loved retreat from the clinical atmosphere inside. The garden was created in 1956, sponsored by Mrs. Olive Prouty whose two children had died in the hospital. Now it is under threat of demolition as the hospital looks for space to expand on its very urban site.

A petition to save the garden has already garnered over 6,500 signatures, but they need more! Please sign and help spread the word. Newspaper articles and radio reports (see, for example, WBUR and The Boston Globe) have taken up the story to plead for the retention of this irreplaceable green oasis.

A Scientific American article last year called the Prouty Garden “one of the most successful hospital gardens in the country.” Though though constructed long before our research-based knowledge of the critical issues in hospital garden design – it is almost perfect as a restorative space in healthcare. (more…)

THE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AWARD FOR HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENTS – Applications due 9/20!

September 11, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

Photo by Henry Domke, www.henrydomke.com

I don’t usually make titles all in bold, but this is such an exciting opportunity, I wanted to grab your attention.

Vendome Group, publisher of Healthcare Design, Environments for Aging and Behavioral Healthcare, is excited to announce our inaugural The Landscape Architecture Award for Healthcare Environments!

Landscape Architecture projects will be featured in a special digital magazine that will reach more than 80,000 readers.

Highlights of this program include:

An ideal audience: Projects will be seen by Architects, Designers, Administrators, C-Suite Executives within healthcare communities, and more.
Recognition for exceptional landscape architecture and design within 3 categories: Acute Care, Senior Living and Behavioral Healthcare.
A low entry fee: Cost to enter is only $350 per project.
Expert Panelists: A jury of industry experts will choose one winner and runner-up within each of the 3 categories to be published in the digital magazine.

Award winners and runners-up will receive:

A 2-page spread, at no cost, featured in the digital magazine.
A prestigious award engraved with the firm and facility names; and
Editorial coverage in 2014.

All other firms with accepted projects will have the option to include their project in the digital magazine for a nominal fee.

As the Director of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network, I can’t tell you how excited I am about this program. Oh, wait, I just did.

Applications are due SOON – 9/20/13 so pull your material together and submit it!

To learn more, visit: www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/page/landscape-architecture-awards-healthcare-environments

Going to the hospital and we’re…gonna get married

August 13, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

Staff, patients, and visitors enjoy the Les & Betty Krueger Family Healing Garden.

The hospital isn’t somewhere most people plan on getting married. In fact, the idea might be hard for some to imagine. But what if really wanted to get married, and you really couldn’t leave the hospital…where would you choose for the wedding? Your room? Probably not, especially if it’s a shared room. The chapel? Maybe, but not all hospital chapels are that inspiring, and not all are non-denominational. So, how about outside in the garden? A quiet, neutral place away from the sharp corners, beeping machines, and sterile surfaces. A place with fresh air, sunlight, and greenery.

Though there have surely been more, we know of at least three weddings that have taken place in healing gardens at hospitals in the United States. In all cases, the patient was too ill to leave and was determined to say their vows, in the garden.

This quote is from one of the employees at Harrison Medical Center, which just recently opened the Les & Betty Krueger Family Healing Garden:

I was in the garden this morning when a chaplain came in with a patient’s mother. Her son was on one of our surgery floors and was supposed to be getting married tomorrow. His mother asked if they could get married in the garden. They had a huge wedding planned. We then discovered his bride to be was a nurse on one of our units. So I talked with Catering and Security to plan. We are having a small ceremony in the garden and reception on our front patio tomorrow. Catering jumped right in to help with food and setting up the patio. Security is blocking off one of our lots for parking. I cannot think of a more therapeutic or sacred use of the garden than entering into matrimony. Definitely one I would not expect.

Thanks to the landscape architect, Mark Epstein of Hafs Epstein, for sharing, and to Harrison Medical Center for letting us re-print the story! For some more photos of the garden, click here.

ASLA 2013 conference – Early bird deadline ends 6/14

June 11, 2013 | by Naomi Sachs

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) annual meeting and EXPO will take place from November 15 -18 in Boston, Massachusetts. This year’s theme is “Gaining Ground.”

Of particular interest to Therapeutic Landscapes Network members will be the following sessions, though many more may be as well.

The general session will be a talk by notable author and scholar Stephen Kellert, “Biophilic Design: People and Nature in the Modern World.”
Saturday, 11/16, 8-9 am
Our connection to the natural world is part of our biological inheritance. Dr. Stephen R. Kellert, a pioneer in biophilia, will set forth an account of nature’s powerful influence on the quality of our lives. Weaving scientific findings together with personal experiences and perspectives, Dr. Kellert explores how our humanity is deeply contingent on the quality of our connections to the natural world. He is the Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology and Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. An award-winning author, educator, and environmental scientist, Dr. Kellert has written more than 150 books and articles and has also completed a 60-minute documentary video, “Biophilic Design: the Architecture of Life.” I highly recommend his new book Birthright.

Landscapes of Therapy at Boston Area Teaching Hospitals
Field Session (tour), Friday, 11/15, all day
Boston-area teaching hospitals are world leaders in patient-centered care, research, and treatment. Visit five recent therapy gardens designed for these institutions to fit in tight urban situations: two interior gardens, two roof-deck gardens, and one waterfront site designed both for therapy and rising sea levels. Yes, this is the same day as the 3 education sessions listed below. Happens every year. We wish ASLA could do something about this but apparently, they can’t.

Translating Research into Restoration: Exterior Environments for Wounded Warriors
Friday, 11/15, 8:30-10 am
Presenters: Landscape architects Brian Bainnson, Connie Roy Fisher, Jerry Smith
This session will look at healing gardens and sustainable sites designed to help heal veterans with PTSD and provide respite for their families and caregivers. Peer-reviewed research, design guidelines, and specific design strategies will focus on three of the country’s most prestigious military medical centers.

Therapeutic, Restorative, or Enabling: Are All Healing Gardens Designed the Same?
Friday, 11/15, 10:30-12 pm
Presenters: Landscape architects Jack Carman and Elizabeth Messer Diehll
As the prevalence of healing gardens grows so do the terms used to describe them, making it difficult to make valid distinctions. Using existing examples, this session presents a framework that describes the purpose, design focus, and potential users of each type of healing garden.

Playing It Too Safe?
Friday, 11/15, 1:30-3 pm
With Philip Howard of Common Good, Julian Richer and Harry Harbottle of Richter Spielgeräte, and Jane Clark Chermayeff of Architectural Playground Equipment, Inc.
Are playgrounds today giving children what they need? This panel for landscape architects, project managers, and advisers will balance risk and safety in planning play spaces and consider how play environments have changed in the 21st century, from both the European and American practitioners’ perspectives.

Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network meeting
Sunday, 11/17 , 9:15-10:45 am

Children’s Outdoor Environments Professional Practice Network meeting
Sunday, 11/17 , 3:15-4:00 pm (I think this time may be incorrect, as the PPN meetings are usually 1.5 hours)

For more information and to register, visit ASLA’s conference page.

The Warrior and Family Support Center – A green haven in San Antonio, TX

November 10, 2012 | by Naomi Sachs

Last month, I had the privilege of seeing the Warrior and Family Support Center (WFSC) in San Antonio, Texas. Three other Texas A&M classmates (an MArch student and two MLA students) and I drove the 3.5 hours from College Station to visit the WFSC and the Center for the Intrepid (CFI), both on the Fort Sam Houston campus. The Center for the Intrepid offers the full spectrum of outpatient care for veterans and “wounded warriors” – active military personnel – who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe injuries such as limb loss, burns, and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Patients are also treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The three missions of CFI include patient care, education and training, and research. Like all major military medical centers, the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston includes Fisher Houses, a place for the entire family to stay while patients are going through treatment and rehabilitation.

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ASLA 2012 – Several events related to health and well-being

July 13, 2012 | by Naomi Sachs

Banner Good Samaritan Health Center. Photo by Brice Bradley

Time flies, and it seems to fly even faster in the summer. Fall is just around the corner, and seems to be a big conference season, so stay tuned for more blog posts on events. Many thanks to Filiz Satir who has been helping with these events postings.

Over the past few years, we have seen an increase in the number of education sessions, tours, and even keynote speakers (e.g., Dick Jackson AND Esther Sternberg in 2010) at ASLA conferences (and Healthcare Design, and Environments for Aging, etc.). I think it’s an encouraging indication of the growing interest in landscapes for human health and well-being, and also a credit to leaders and members of ASLA’s Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Professional Practice Network.

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