An opinion piece by pediatrician Robert Zarr and TLN Founding Director Naomi Sachs was published yesterday in The Hill, titled “Prescribing nature for improved health makes an economic case for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.” Here are a couple of snippets, and you can read the full piece here.
(more…)Healing landscapes
‘The Salutogenic City’ – Design for Health on a Large Scale
January 25, 2018
Clare Cooper Marcus and I wrote this article, The Salutogenic City a couple of years ago. It was first published in World Health Design. Clare was, of course, also my co-author for the book Therapeutic Landscapes.
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“From Memory to Memorial” – Book review by Lisa Horne
September 10, 2017
In memory of the lives that were lost, saved, and changed forever in the attacks on September 11, 2001, here is a review of Bill Thompson’s recently published book, From Memory to Memorial: Shanksville, America, and Flight 93. Thank you, Lisa Horne, for this review
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What is a Healing Garden?
September 11, 2016
My colleague, Dak Kopec, asked me to write a piece on healing gardens for his forthcoming book, Environmental Psychology for Design, and he has graciously given permission to share it with you here on the TLN Blog. Dak is Director of Design for Human Health at Boston Architectural College and has written many books and other publications on the role of the environment in human health. Thank you, Dak!
(more…)“Ecoliteracy Under Our Feet” – Greening Cleveland Elementary School
December 30, 2014
For the last Therapeutic Landscapes Network Blog post of 2014, we want to share an inspiring story of one of many schools that that is “greening” its schoolyard. The six gardens and overall ecoliteracy program at Cleveland Elementary School in Oakland, CA were spurred by Mary Schriner, who interviewed for a position there. When they asked her why she wanted to work at Cleveland Elementary, she responded, “Because your school looks like a prison yard, and I’d like to change that.” And she has changed both the school and grounds, and the lives of those who learn and teach there. One of the first conversations with her students began with the question, “What is a weed?” The project has been a tremendous success. Says Schriner, “I’ve had many, many moments when I’ve almost wanted to cry because I can feel the community happening, not because of me, but because of the natural world that we’re trying to create conditions for at the school. There’s been so much magic around the garden that I just have a lot of gratitude.”
Click here to read the full article by The Center for Ecoliteracy‘s senior editor Michael Stone, “So Much Magic Around the Garden.”
Landscapes for people with cancer – A (former) patient’s point of view. Guest post by Kevan Busa
July 11, 2014
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.
Enter now! Landscape Architecture for Healthcare Communities awards
June 27, 2014
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…)
Boston Children’s Hospital’s Prouty Garden under threat of demolition. Guest post by Clare Cooper Marcus
September 17, 2013
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
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
Vincent van Gogh’s restorative landscapes
August 1, 2013
From van Gogh’s ‘Iris’ series, painted at the Asylum of Saint Paul de Mausole in Saint-Rémy, France, 1889.
Vincent van Gogh painted his famous “Iris” series at the Asylum of Saint Paul de Mausole in Saint-Rémy, France, in 1889. Allowed to roam the asylum ’s grounds, van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother, Theo, “When I send you the four canvases of the garden. . .you ’ll see that considering that life happens above all in the garden, it isn ’t so sad.” In a letter to his mother and sister he wrote, “But precisely for one ’s health, as you say—it ’s very necessary to work in the garden and to see the flowers growing.”
From Van Gogh, Vincent. 2009. Vincent van Gogh–The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition. Edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, Nienke Bakker of the Van Gogh Museum in association with the Huygens Institute. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Letters 776 and 889 retrieved from http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters.html on May 8, 2013.