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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Access to Nature DVDs – Spring Sale!
April 1, 2016
If you have not seen the terrific award-winning DVD series “Access to Nature for Older Adults,” this is your chance. To coincide with the Environments for Aging conference, this DVD series is being offered during the month of April at a significant discount (50% off!) for TLN members. We’ll be sending out an email on Tuesday, 4/5 to our members with a keycode to buy the discounted DVDs.
To join the TLN, just sign up for our mailing list. It’s free and you’ll get occasional newsletters, as well as discounts like these. On the right-hand side of this blog page, see “Get TLN Blog posts emailed to you!” Enter your email and click “Subscribe.” That’s it! But do it soon, the email with the keycode goes out on Tuesday, April 5th.
About the Access to Nature for Older Adults DVDs
The series was developed by Susan Rodiek and colleagues at the Center for Health Systems & Design, Texas A&M University.
This fast-paced and lively set of three half-hour videos includes dramatic images, professional narration, and a rich variety of site photos, 3-D animations, diagrams, sketches, and interviews with senior residents and world-renowned experts on this multidisciplinary topic.
HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2014 – Catch the Earlybird Special!
July 24, 2014
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!
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.
EBD Boot Camp – Boot Camp for Evidence-Based Design
August 26, 2013
It’s back to school! On September 12-14, the Texas A&M Center for Health Systems and Design will hold a two-day work session on evidence-based design. EBD Boot Camp is a practical interactive work session that will give design professionals, developers, researchers, and others the practical experience of applying relevant evidence in their work.
Led by Texas A&M experts, the September Boot Camp is the first of four work sessions sponsored by the Center for Health Systems and Design. Another fall EBD Boot Camp session takes place October 24-26; two more sessions will follow in 2014, February 6-8 and March 20-22. The organizers describe the hands-on workshop in this way:
This is not a superficial conference presentation about theory. It is a unique, no-nonsense, limited attendance and hands-on work session using relevant evidence to develop the real project on your desk.
Want to learn how to incorporate evidence-based design into your work? Bring a current project and learn how to use and integrate relevant evidence through a hands-on, interactive work session with expert guides.
WHERE:
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
WHEN:
September 12-14, 2013 or October 24-26, 2013
REGISTRATION:
$1700 per person, $1450 for each additional person – same firm. Limited to 8 attendees per session.
FACULTY:
D. Kirk Hamilton, FAIA, FACHA, EDAC
Mardelle Shepley, D.Arch, AIA, LEED AP, EDAC
James W. Varni, PhD
Susan D. Rodiek, PhD, NCARB, EDAC
Zofia Rybkowski, PhD,LEED AP
Xuemei Zhu, PhD
Zhipeng Lu, PhD
OPEN TO:
Architects, Landscape Architects, Engineers, Designers, Project Managers, Researchers, Technology Experts, Librarians, Developers, and Building Owners
CERTIFICATE:
Attendees who complete the EBD Boot Camp, perform the assigned work and pass the review exam will receive an Advanced Practitioner Certificate from the Center for Health Systems & Design at Texas A&M University.
For more information contact Judy Pruitt at(979) 845-7009 or jpruitt@tamu.edu. To register, click here. For more information, read the EBD Boot Camp flier.
HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2013 – Early Bird reg. ends Friday!
August 5, 2013
In our earlier post on HEALTHCARE DESIGN 2013, we didn’t list specific sessions because they hadn’t been published yet. So here’s an update, with sessions that may be of particular interest to our Network members. Keep in mind that many other sessions will probably cover access to nature in one way or another; these are just the ones that mentioned it specifically.
First, here’s the HCD13 blurb:
“Shaping the Future of Healthcare Facility Design”
The Healthcare Design Conference is the premier event devoted to how the design of responsibly built environments directly impact the safety, operation, clinical outcomes, and financial success of healthcare facilities now and into the future. With roughly 4000 participants at the 2012 Healthcare Design Conference, this is the industry’s best-attended conference where attendees can earn up to 24 continuing education credits, network with peers, and influence the direction of the industry as it advances into the future.
For more information and to register, visit www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/conference/healthcare-design-conference
Now the sessions:
Facility tour of Nemours Childrens Hospital
TAMU First Look Colloqium—Therapeutic Landscapes: Tools for Successful Design and Outcomes
Naomi Sachs, Founding Director, Therapeutic Landscapes Network; Mardelle McCuskey Shepley, DArch, FAIA, FACHA, EDAC, LEED AP, The Skaggs – Sprague Endowed Chair in Health Facilities Design, Director, Center for Health Systems & Design, Texas A&M University.
Access to nature in the healthcare environment is increasingly accepted by designers, healthcare administrators, staff, and the community as an important element in the environment of care. As demand grows, designers need solid research, specific guidelines, and good existing examples to inform their work. Guidelines with clearly defined metrics can be translated into an evaluative tool for “apples to apples” comparisons. All of these strategies help stakeholders to understand the role and importance of access to nature. This understanding and knowledge ensures that spaces—and elements within those spaces—provide the best possible outcomes for patients, visitors, staff.
Center for Health Design ICONS & Innovators Webinar Series
March 9, 2013
Therapeutic Landscapes Network Director Naomi Sachs, along with her fabulous colleagues Alberto Salvatore and Jerry Smith, will be part of the ICONS and Innovators Webinar Series next week on the action-packed day of Thursday, March 14. Theirs is one of three webinars that provide an interactive experience with an exclusive line-up of healthcare thought leaders offering fresh perspectives to inform work strategies. All three webinars are listed below:
“Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Wellbeing: Implications for Designing Healthy Spaces for Healthcare Settings”
Dr. Esther Sternberg
Can stress make you sick? Can belief help healing? Does the place and space around you affect your health? These are the questions that Dr. Sternberg explores.
9:00 am PDT/12:00 pm EDT.
For a TLN interview with Esther Sternberg, click here.
“The Case for Access to Nature”
Naomi Sachs, ASLA, EDAC
Alberto Salvatore, AIA, NCARB, EDAC
Jerry Smith, FASLA, EDAC, LEED AP
Discover the proposed revisions to the Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities that will allow regulatory agencies to more strongly support the inclusion of meaningful outdoor spaces in future projects.
11:00 am PDT/2:00 pm EDT.
“The Impact of Color – Research Reviewed and Redefined”
Rosalyn Cama, FASID, EDAC
Eve Edelstein, MArch, Ph.D, AssocAIA, FAAA
Sheila Bosch, Ph.D, LEED AP, EDAC.
Become familiar with research about color and lighting with perspectives from the neuroscience of vision, the psychology of perception, and include sociocultural and functional effects that have impact on design and user outcomes.
1:00 pm PDT/ 4:00 pm EDT
TUITION PER WEBINAR:
Individual: $90.00, Organization: $180.00
WEBINAR SERIES DISCOUNTS:
purchase 5 webinars – get 10% off
purchase 10 webinars – get 15% off
purchase 15 webinars – get 20% off
For information and to register for one or all webinars here. Hope you can join us!
Happy National Nurses Week!
May 8, 2012
Jacqueline Fiske Healing Garden, Jupiter Medical Center, Jupiter, FL. Photo courtesy of Studio Sprout
“So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.” – Florence Nightingale
Let’s hear it for nurses!
If anyone knew the value of fresh air and access to the outdoors, it was Florence Nightingale (1820-1910); her birthday is on May 12th, and National Nurses Week began on May 6th.
Therapeutic and restorative gardens in hospitals and other healthcare facilities are not just for patients and visitors. Staff can benefit just as much – and sometimes even more. The outdoors is a critical place of respite where people who deal with life-and-death situations can go, by themselves or with colleagues, to take a physical, mental, and/or emotional break. Whenever possible, healthcare facilities should provide separate garden spaces for staff. This separation of space for different users with different needs can be as important as the space itself. Even a view of the outdoors has been found to benefit staff, for example by reducing stress and improving alertness (which, of course, benefits the patients as well!). (more…)
Earth Day 2012 – Sustainable and therapeutic landscapes
April 20, 2012
The retention pond at Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, FL also serves as large water feature, viewable from the Cancer Treatment Center. Photo by Michiko Kurisu, courtesy of Studio Spout.
Happy Earth Day!
Human health cannot be treated separately from the natural environment.
– Hippocrates, 4th Century BCE
We at the Therapeutic Landscapes Network believe that the best landscapes for health are those that benefit people and the planet. In the most recent issue of Research Design Connections, an article by Naomi Sachs titled “Landscapes for Health: Therapeutic AND Sustainable Landscapes in the Healthcare Setting,” is featured in the Expert’s Corner. If you subscribe to RDC, you can log in and read the full article on their website. This article will also become a chapter in a book on therapeutic landscapes by Naomi Sachs and Clare Cooper Marcus, to be published by Wiley in 2013.
Below are some excerpts from the article:
Complementary Approaches
Sustainable and therapeutic landscapes complement each other in myriad ways. Facilities have the opportunity to “feed two birds with one seed” by meshing the two design philosophies. Landscape architects are the architect’s and engineer’s best friend here, because they are trained to see the “big picture” as well as details that will best benefit the site and the people served. In many cases, one strategy comes first and the other follows. (more…)
Evidence-based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC): Why it matters
April 17, 2012
Rooftop garden, Dublin Methodist Hospital, Dublin, OH. Photo by Brad Feinknoph for Karlsberger
In yesterday’s blog post, I discussed my plans to pursue a PhD that would focus on access to nature and evidence-based design in the healthcare setting, and I promised to go into more depth about EBD today. For even more information and resources, please visit the TLN website’s page: www.healinglandscapes.org/resources/ebd.
A large and growing body of evidence attests to the fact that the physical environment impacts patient stress, patient and staff safety, staff effectiveness and quality of care provided in hospitals and other healthcare settings. Basing healthcare facility planning and design decisions on this evidence to achieve the best possible patient, staff and operational outcomes is what evidence-based design (EBD) is all about.
The Center for Health DesignIn EBD, research generally refers to empirical research, the systematic investigation of the tangible facts aimed at gaining knowledge, making discoveries, testing and revising theories, and applying new knowledge…What differentiates EBD from the traditional design approach is the emphasis on using research to support design decision making and evaluation of design innovations.
An Introduction to Evidence-Based Design: Exploring Healthcare and Design (EDAC Study Guide 1), p. 72.
I recently took (and passed) the Evidence-based Design Accreditation and Certification (EDAC) exam, the culmination of the Center for Health Design’s program to educate and certify individuals in using an evidence-based approach for the design and construction of healthcare facilities. (more…)