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therapeutic landscape and healing gardens
PERSPECTIVE
Ying-Yu Hung
Principal of the LA Studio, SWA
Landscape Infrastructure: Systems of Contingency, Flexibility, and Adaptability
Over the last 20 years, new trends in landscape architecture have sought to define the practice from a more holistic vantage point, one that is not limited by what we create but that reflects an integral part of our philosophy – our way of life. This new worldview stems from our realization that we, as a society, have contributed to the deterioration of our environment. Landscape architects and urbanists can help reverse the process, cognizant that even with our best intentions, the landscape we create may yield unpredictable results, and that the aspect of “change” is the underlying factor in everything we do. This philosophical understanding suggests a new way to think about landscape architecture, a way that furthers the dialogue between ecological process and design. To that end, landscape architecture is crossing disciplines; the physical framework from which landscape architecture operates has no boundaries, and the purposes it serves are becoming more infrastructural, sociopolitical, economic, and environmental. In addition, the practice of landscape architecture today is more closely aligned with architecture, urban design, and planning than ever before. Many successful infrastructural projects often involve landscape architects’ full participation with engineers and scientists from the outset. Among many leading practitioners, the convergence of these practices shares a common outlook: the global landscape is mosaic-based, where edges are permeable and the boundaries between cities and countryside are in flux. Within this “mosaic” landscape, there exists a complex set of networks or systems that are highly interconnected and interdependent. The systems cannot be approached in isolation, as even the smallest intervention affects the larger whole. Landscape architecture today offers the means to analyze, synthesize, and provide an organizational
framework toward an integrated urban design strategy. At the same time, the landscape architect possesses the unique ability to address a project at multiple scales – to think big and small at the same time, to give form and beauty and create identity and memory in a place.
What is Landscape Infrastructure? Recent writings and discourse held among major universities and the professional community at large point toward the undeniable fact that “once married with architecture, mobility, and landscape, infrastructure can more meaningfully integrate territories, reduce marginalization and segregation, and stimulate new forms of interaction. It can then truly become ‘landscape.’” The integration of the infrastructural system within the landscape framework requires one to redefine the old system within a new set of paradigms, one that is more aligned to natural systems of ecology. First, the nature of infrastructure today is successional, where modes of infrastructure may quickly become obsolete, redistributed, and reinvented, subjected by global geopolitical and economic forces. The contingency of today’s infrastructure necessitates the system to be designed for flexibility and adaptability. Second, traditional infrastructure was conceived as a centralized, single-purpose system; the trend for today’s infrastructure system is to become decentralized, where the need to address, for instance, stormwater runoff, energy, farming, or transportation are resolved at a local level. Aside from performing its intended functions, the multifunctional variations of these vital systems can be a catalyst for urban revitalization through open-
space augmentation, habitat creation, community revitalization, and transformation of urban blight into urban destination. Last, infrastructure such as roads “are required to perform multiple functions: they must fulfill the requirements of public space and must be connected to other functioning urban systems of public transit, pedestrian movement, water management, economic development, public facilities, and ecological systems.” The multifunctional aspect of infrastructure also speaks to the importance of diversification as a general principle in city-making, leading to an optimized condition in which the city and its infrastructure are one and the same – where infrastructure informs how the city is organized and built. A classic example is the Back Bay Fens in Boston, designed and engineered by Frederick Law Olmsted. The site was formerly a saltwater marshland tainted with untreated raw sewage from the city’s growing settlement. Landreclamation projects in the 1820s began a series of dedicated efforts to improve water quality, control floods, and allow a tidal ecosystem to be reestablished. Today the Back Bay Fens is part of the 445-hectare chain of parks, parkways, and waterways forming the Emerald Necklace, bringing improved air quality, urban runoff retention and remediation, wildlife habitats, trails, sports venues, and a 107-hectare arboretum to Boston residents. In addition to the temporal, decentralized, and multifunctional characteristics that define landscape infrastructure, landscape infrastructure is further comprised of a set of attributes relating to form, function, and time, outlined below, all of which have a cumulative effect benefiting the greater whole. A landscape infrastructure project may contain all of
the attributes described, with one more dominant than another given varying degrees of scale, scope, and influence.
scale, can reduce stormwater runoff, increase tree coverage, and offer health benefits through outdoor exercise.
1. Performance. As a non-isolated system, landscape infrastructure has the ability to adhere to a set of requirements and achieve measurable results. Infrastructure has traditionally been engineered to meet a set of expectations, while the benefits of landscape have often been undervalued due to its inability to produce quantifiable results. By adopting the infrastructure model, the performance of a functioning urban ecosystem can be evaluated and adjusted to achieve maximum results. Chicago, for example, has the world’s largest surface area of green roofs for an urban center. The performative nature of green roofs could be quantified through the system’s ability to reduce heat gain, collect stormwater, and provide urban wildlife habitat.
4. Increment. The incremental nature of infrastructural projects bears directly on a city’s ability to sustain growth through a measured period of time. Most public infrastructure projects are realized and put in full operation over many decades, mostly because of the astronomical cost, the availability of public funds, and the political forces at play. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system was introduced in 1946, but the extensions to the three Bay Area counties were not completed until the mid-1990s, including the connection to the San Francisco International Airport. Further extension to Silicon Valley and South Bay remains to be realized. Similarly, the protection of our natural resources such as national parks and significant urban parks takes forethought and unwavering determination, and the benefits are cross-generational.
2. Aggregate. Landscape infrastructure is often seen as piecemeal objects. When consolidated, the collective whole has the ability to remediate and sometimes even reverse negative impact. As a car-obsessed country, the United States builds its infrastructure around cars – a complex web of roads and tunnels, car dealers, parking structures, gas stations, and car-wash facilities. Tremendous resources and government incentives have been put toward research of fuel-efficient cars, alternative fuels, waterless car washing, and green parking lot design. These seemingly uncoordinated efforts, if implemented within a given time frame, could help reverse the negative impacts of global warming. 3. Network. Infrastructure is a connective tissue that brings together disparate elements, instilling cohesion and purpose. The sheer scale and vast resources spent on network infrastructure present tremendous opportunities to leverage unrealized potential in the urban environment. U.S. cities that depend on freeways and automobiles as the primary means of transporting goods and services are increasingly being retrofitted with public transit. The transit corridors function as a giant network linking neighborhoods. Neighborhoods and local businesses along the transit nodes grow and benefit from greater exposure to the public, making them more identifiable and valuable. Los Angeles has 822 kilometers of freeways, 82 kilometers of channelized waterways, 11,265 kilometers of power lines, 10,299 kilometers of streets, and much more infrastructure hidden all over the city that has not been accounted for. The latest survey conducted by the City Council shows that infrastructure improvements rank at the top of the list to improve Los Angeles’s neighborhoods. The city’s alleyways are narrow corridors nestled between city blocks, typically designed for service-oriented vehicular circulation: parking, loading zone for delivery trucks, and solid waste collection. All together, the alleyways in Los Angeles account for more than 1,448 kilometers of pavement and cover about 777 hectares – about half the size of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park and twice the size of New York’s Central Park. These alleyways could be retrofitted with bioswales, exploratory bicycle trails, and pedestrian greenways and pocket parks, in addition to being service corridors. As a collective system, the alleyway infrastructure, when operated at a city
Central Park in New York City was envisioned by Andrew Jackson Downing and William Cullen Bryant as a way to address the ills of society: crowded streets, poor immigrants, and crime. For a rapidly growing city such as New York in the 1830s, it was necessary that the park be large enough to anticipate the needs of its populace. As a significant landscape infrastructural project, the completion of the 341-hectare park in 1860 brought forth unanticipated benefits to the local economy through tourism, increases in property and land values, and increased revenues for the government. In February 2009, the U.S. Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in an effort to stimulate the economy, in its deepest recession since the Great Depression. The stimulus package provides $787 billion in appropriations for crisis investments, including $80.9 billion for infrastructure investment (including roads, bridges, railways, sewers, high-performance green buildings, wastewater treatment infrastructure improvements, drinking water infrastructure
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improvements, electric vehicle development), $15 billion for supplemental investments (including Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Forest Service, National Wildlife Refuges), and $45.2 billion for energy (renewable energy, smart grid, electric vehicle technologies, and brownfield land remediation).
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To counter the effects of the global financial crisis, China also approved a multibillion-dollar package for infrastructure projects. China’s Eleventh FiveYear Plan (2006–2010) focuses on infrastructure investments in central and western regions, including road networks, railways, power grids, and irrigation systems, as the rising middle class in these areas demands an improved standard of living on par with the rest of the country. The ongoing South-to-North Water Diversion project, a daunting feat of mega-engineering delivering water from the water-abundant southern provinces to the water-scarce Beijing region, offers the greatest potential for landscape infrastructure. We live in a historic moment in which many lawmakers and government officials share a vision for sustainable global development. For individuals who convert their diesel cars to biofuel, urban farmers who replace lawns with organic vegetable gardens and chicken coops, and academics who teach that the most efficient way toward carbon sequestration lies in the preservation of our forest habitats, bogs, and wetlands, the future of landscape infrastructure projects is in plain view. Our cities need this kind of infrastructural approach that extends beyond perceived boundaries and connects various sites to other sites, people to places, communities to communities, people to people, nature to city, and city to nature. With the rapid growth of our metropolises and the shortage of available open space, however, it has been discovered that infrastructure is an untapped resource with the capacity to effect positive change. Through the employment of ecological and social principles, the urban infrastructural systems can play a multifaceted role that actively contributes to the betterment of urban life.
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Landscape Architects: HGA Architects and Engineers (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) | Location: Owensboro, Kentucky, USA
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1. Sculpture integrated in the landscape 2. A circular water feature in the Main Courtyard Garden
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Owensboro Health System Campus
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wensboro Health System outgrew its existing hospital, and rather than renovating, a replacement facility proved most cost effective and patientfocused. The 780,000-square-foot (72,000sqm) Owensboro Health Regional Hospital includes a 447-bed inpatient Bed Tower, three-story Diagnostic & Treatment Building, Emergency Department, Women’s Center, Heart Center, and Outpatient Diagnostics Center. The landscape architect worked as part of a larger design team to organize, program, and detail the new site, with the goal of creating a campus that promotes exceptional patient care through environmental sustainability.
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While the site offered flexibility for phased expansion plans and accessibility to public and private transportation, the 157-acre (63.5-hectare) undeveloped “clean slate” site had its challenges. Previously a soybean field with unattractive views of neighboring industrial uses, the soil condition was eroded and nutrient depleted. The relatively flat site also sits within the Ohio River flood plain. The landscape architect saw opportunity in these constraints, to reinvigorate the degraded landscape through integrating water management, ecological reclamation, and human health design strategies. Landscape Record Vol. 3/2016.06
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SITE PLAN 1. Hospital 2. Yellow grasslands 3. Restored grasslands 4. Retention areas 5. Detention areas 6. Rain gardens 7. Wellness paths 8. Circuit training areas 9. Dining plaza garden 10. Commemorative garden 11. Woman’s rooftop garden 12. Main courtyard garden 13. Dry river rain garden 14. Staff interior garden 15. Power plant area 16. Lotus water garden 17. Emergency entry water feature
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1. A relaxation area for patients, visitors and staff 2-3. Circular water feature set in the midst of lush vegetation 4. Meandering path leading to the hospital 5. Detail of the plants and pebbles
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Project Name: Owensboro Health System Campus HGA Landscape Team: Emanouil Spassov, ASLA Theodore Lee, ASLA Erica Christensen, ASLA Trygve Hansen, ASLA Nissa Tupper, ASLA Architects/Engineers: HGA Architects and Engineers (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA) Size: 63.5ha Photography and Graphics: Courtesy of HGA Architects and Engineers 1
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Human health SITE GIAGRAM
Water management
Ecological reclamation 1
The nearby Ohio River – a powerful force carving through the site’s adjacent landscape – provided a palpable metaphor to organize the campus design. The site and structure elements integrate through “A River Runs Through” organizational scheme to allow a flow of restorative inside/outside experiences and connected ecological strategies. The landscape architect sculpted topography to form an interconnected system of stormwater features. The landscape architect also teamed with the landscape supervisor to cultivate a shift in landscape management cultural practices. Recognizing the unique Kentucky vegetation context, the team worked to reclaim a naturalized area that had been stripped of its environmental integrity. The campus design restores 70% of the site to a naturalized state. Native grass plantings layer up in open areas and along pond banks; flowering and fruiting trees are dispersed throughout to provide aesthetics and wildlife value; and larger hardwoods flank exterior roadsides and are grouped strategically throughout the interior. As a result of the site transformation and sustainable management plan, the campus is designated by Audubon International as the first Certified Signature Sanctuary in the state of Kentucky – the first hospital in the world to achieve this certification. 26
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The hospital campus design offers a healing environment that integrates the restorative powers of nature. A new wellness trail and circuit training course passes through reclaimed wetlands and meadows toward an increasingly manicured landscape adjacent to the building. Set in the midst of lush vegetation, a circular water feature in the Main Courtyard Garden offers an intimate reflection area for recharging and healing. The role of water, movement and color in the human healing process are signified by sculptural pieces integrated in the landscape. Through a collaborative and thoughtful design process, the landscape architect established an interconnected water management, ecological reclamation, and human health design framework. The outcome aligns site design strategies with sustainable landscape management practices to truly renew and elevate the direct connection between a healthy environment and human health. Healing Design The Owensboro Health System campus design elevates the direct connection between a healthy environment and the human healing process. Upon first approach, the hospital emerges in the distance through tall wetland grasses and tree allées signify circulation paths. A restorative,
natural setting immerses visitors as they approach the building and the soothing sounds of water and lush vegetation soften the entry areas.
1. Flowering and fruiting trees dispersed throughout 2. Night view of the relaxation area 3. Night view of the circular water feature
To protect against seasonal floods on a flat site, the hospital’s designed topography undulates to create stormwater retention ponds and a large plinth that elevates the hospital. These features double as recreational and healing amenities for patients, visitors, employees, and community members. Several courtyards, gardens, and other green spaces near the building offer visual and physical respite for patients, visitors, and employees. A rooftop garden lifts the healing benefits of nature to the upper levels of the hospital. Combinations of ponds, rain gardens, rolling hills covered with trees, ornamental grasses, and flowering perennials promote mental restoration. Public art installations provide spiritual connection. Meandering paths, a circuit training course, and seating hierarchy encourage social interaction and physical activity. The aggregate of these site features unifies and enriches the restorative qualities of the campus, establishing an adaptable framework and illustrating the direct connection between a healthy environment and community wellness. 2
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Landscape Architects: MKSK & OLIN | Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA
Chlois G. 3.com Ingram Spirit of Women Park
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he Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center campus has undergone a major five-year $1.1 billion expansion project. Understanding the Medical Center’s shortage of meaningful open space, MKSK|OLIN proposed to repurpose an underutilized flat lawn panel as a respite garden and new “home” for the re-imagined Spirit of Women Park. The new Chlois G. Ingram Spirit of Women Park was designed to honor the lives of extraordinary women and recapture the soul of the original park, while creating a signature new healing place of respite for the Wexner Medical Center. As the centerpiece of the new park, a Donor Fountain is framed by sculpted landforms, bluestone paving, and native plantings to create a reflective and compelling place for patients, visitors, and staff. Every aspect of the park was meticulously thought out to include a variety of spatial experiences for the user. The design transports the user to a natural environment within the dense urban fabric of the Medical Center. The park’s organic landforms and plantings work together to mitigate noise from the surrounding vehicular streets, providing an enclave of intimacy and reflection. Visitors can relax among the ever-changing wildflowers selected to bloom throughout the seasons or gather at the handicapped-accessible tables to dine alfresco from the nearby café. Viewed from the hospital’s patient rooms above, the park creates an interesting tapestry of forms, colors, and textures.
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1. Custom-detailed bio-filtration basins, designed to fit seamlessly into the streetscape environment, capture and purify rainwater from the surrounding streets and walkways
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SITE PLAN
As part of The Ohio State University’s Green Initiatives, the use of sustainable development practices remained a key factor for the Medical Center and a fundamental component of the planning, design, and construction process.
1. The exquisitely detailed, and fabricated, stratified granite side wall alludes to the historic geology of the site while framing both the social gathering space of the outdoor cafĂŠ and expressing the movement of the adjacent landform. 2. The memorial tiles placed within a dark granite fountain set in a field of bluestone, glass, wood, and native
plantings, provide a rich tapestry of materials within the healing environment. 3. The park space sits at the entry to the main hospital and helps provide a sense of arrival. Framed by native planting the main fountain offers dramatic views from the patient rooms that overlook the park.
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Project Name: Chlois G. Ingram Spirit of Women Park Size: 0.65ha Photography: Randall Schieber, Randall Schieber Photography; Sahar Coston, OLIN; Nick Fancher, Nick Fancher Photography
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Green infrastructure is being used throughout the campus to provide an offset for future planned development of new buildings and roadways. This integrated approach, prepared by MKSK|OLIN, makes use of street edges and open spaces to meet water quality and quantity standards. In the initial phase, the park design Landscape Record Vol. 3/2016.06
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incorporates bioretention cells to detain and treat stormwater run-off from adjacent roads, sidewalks, and impervious surfaces. LED lighting was used for low energy consumption. In further support of these initiatives, 26 mature trees on the existing site were carefully removed, stored during the construction process, and returned to the site as part of the final park design. The result is an aesthetically pleasing and mature streetscape environment which also supports the Medical Center’s commitment to sustainability. In part, due to these initiatives on Spirit of Women Park, the expansive Critical Care Tower was awarded LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), exceeding the University’s goal of Silver. As part of the LEED Gold achievement, the USGBC specifically recognized the sustainable site development including the creation of open green spaces, sustainable stormwater management systems, and the introduction of drought-tolerant and indigenous plants into the landscape.
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The original park, named for Chlois G. Ingram, a dedicated American Red Cross volunteer at the Medical Center during the 1950s and ‘60s, featured colorful, hand-painted ceramic tiles mounted to concrete walls between cascades of water. The tiles honored women and told personal stories of women from all walks of life, both living and deceased, in their roles as mothers, grandmothers, sisters, nieces, friends, teachers, healers, and mentors. The original desire to reuse the multicolored ceramic artwork from the former park proved unfeasible due to the weathering and fragility of the original ceramic tiles. As a result, developing a means to recreate these personal stories, which are as unique and varied as the donors themselves, became the greatest challenge. MKSK|OLIN developed a design solution by which each tile was individually photographed and painstakingly digitally traced in order to maintain the handmade quality of the original artwork. Based upon the original tiles sizes (4” ×4”, 8” × 8” or 12”× 12”), the designers assembled the 1,515 individual graphics into 97 glass mosaic panels. The artwork was etched using a ceramic frit which was baked into the glass. The recreated mosaic glass panels were incorporated into a dramatic Donor Fountain that sits on a tapestry of bluestone paving and serves as the central feature in the new Spirit of Women Park. As the focal point of the new park, the donor graphics have been given new life by placing the mosaic glass panels, as if floating, into a crescent-shaped reflecting pool stretching 175’ 32
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life in all of its cycles. One that has proven Spirit of Women Park to be a dramatic signature space for the Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University.
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(53m) in length. The glass panels are now clearly visible just beneath the smooth reflective surface of the water. The appearance at night is striking, as the crescent-shaped fountain is illuminated from the edge with LED light strips allowing the artwork to glow above the base of the dark granite basin. By continuing the Chlois G. Ingram legacy, this park provides a dramatic signature space for the Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University, but more importantly provides a place of respite and healing for caregivers, staff, visitors, and patients alike to reduce stress and improve their well-being. The MKSK|OLIN approach to healthcare and
healing environments is founded in evidencebased design principles that support the benefits of nature on human health and well-being. It has been well documented (Ulrich, 1984) that patients with views of nature have a much shorter post-operative stays, require less medication, and have long- and short-term mental and physical health benefits. The MKSK|OLIN holistic approach to healthcare campuses extends the concepts of healing environments beyond small courtyards and roof gardens out into the entire healthcare campus and adjacent community. At the new Spirit of Women Park, MKSK|OLIN designed places of respite for patients, family and staff that provide beauty and awareness for all the senses and appreciation for
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1. The glass tiles are strategically placed along the edge of the fountain and float just beneath the surface of the water. Frosted panels of glass that extend toward the center of the fountain were inspired by ice formations on the nearby Olentangy River. 2. The mirrored pool spills over the curved granite edge, composing a soothing sound within the garden. Glass artists used a ceramic frit process to recreate each original tile. Composed into mosaic panels, the tiles were then incorporated into the fountain. 3. As a place of respite in a stressful medical center environment, Spirit of Women Park offers many opportunities for users to immerse themselves in nature. 4. A social gathering space, adjacent to an existing café, provides opportunities for outdoor dining and conversation while viewing the memorial fountain. The park has incorporated secure Wi-Fi capability to allow medical staff and patients to access their critical data.
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Landscape Architects: Rush\Wright Associates | Location: Parkville, Melbourne, Australia
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1. View across the Level 07 public garden 2. The new $1 billion dollar hospital in Parkville
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Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Center
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he best hospitals ever made were designed with access to landscape, views, natural light and sunshine. Long before the obvious curative benefits of these features were clinically demonstrated, architects and landscape architects have intuitively positioned nature and landscape as central to the health care experience of patients, staff and researchers. From Aalto’s Paimio Sanatorium (Paimio, Sweden, 1932) and backwards in time through the Victorian hospital building era, the focus was always on the window, the balcony, the bed terrace and sunshine. In the absence of optimized health science, these design features probably assisted recovery more than any of the balms, liniments and spurious medical practices rooted in the superstitions of the day, rather than in research or traditional natural medicines. Aalto’s modernist scheme at Paimio was set in a natural woodland, with nature on show all around. Perhaps this is the benchmark for a hospital designed with a natural landscape setting set outside and around the building itself. Recent hospital designs have brought landscape into the center of hospital experience, often using extensive roof gardens, terraces and balconies within the hospital itself. This is not without risk, as living landscapes bring with them other organisms that can pose a threat to patient health through allergy, or exposure to fungal infections like Legionella or Aspergillus. This needs careful management in design, maintenance and management of landscape spaces, and a special focus on planting selection, as well as soil selection, irrigation design and mulch specification to minimize risk.
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Ideas about landscape are central to the new Cancer Center design, from the wrapped, top-lit central open space, through to the roof terraces, small patient break-out spaces and the continuous access to views out through the trees, and across the skyline to the city beyond. Landscape Record Vol. 3/2016.06
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LEVEL 1 WELLNESS CENTER GARDEN PLAN 1. Bamboo screen to patient room 2. Rainforest islands with diverse plantings 3. Seating niches for patient rest
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1. View of the rainforest courtyard on Level 1 2. Wellness Center rainforest garden 3. Landscape designed to enliven the interior views
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Project Name: Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Center Completion Date: June 2016 Size: 2,500sqm Photography:
The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Center is more than a hospital, as it combines clinical practice, teaching, research and commercial health objectives in one building, hoping to catalyze and benefit from the many synergies that working in one place can bring. The public spaces and landscape spaces are critical social nodes, where specialists from each area will mingle, relax and collaboratively share knowledge in a relaxed and supportive environment.
The island site for this new center has become a virtue here; not only does the building present “in the round” as a land-marking sculpture in space, the project gives every façade and every window on every floor a long and mostly valuable view. Recent research proves that even photographs of natural landscapes located in recovery settings improve outcomes; here almost every space has some access to the real thing.
The designed landscapes for this project include the north terrace on level 1, a rainforest niche composed around islands of soft green planting, with luxurious, curving timber couches and tables providing rest spaces and places to meet. A diverse planting suggests the research potential of the rainforest, the origin of new treatments and cures. The design reinforces the key principle that biodiversity is really the essential platform for all human health, a concept that modern medicine sometimes overlooks.
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On level 7, the large floors of the low-rise podium of the project step back, creating a significant western roof terrace. A new café creates a social hub on this floor, where staff from all areas can mingle, creating vital, relaxed crossovers between clinical and research practice. The roof garden supports this, locating generous social seating throughout, and a giant refectory table for meetings, lunches and project demonstrations for groups of up to 30. A barbecue stands ready, nearby. The garden is conceived as a botanically diverse, extraordinary floral display space, with a large group of giant artificial flowers creating an eyecatching central motif. These “wind flowers” also form shade structures, and support for flowering climbers, creating significant focus and visual interest from windows above. Installed
at the center of the landscape experience in this project, this “vase of flowers” crystallizes the central, familiar, ritual of hospital visitation into a cheerful and ever-present reminder of human love, and hope. These large forms also remind us of the origins of medicines in the world of plants, and the healing power of nature that is always available.
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1. Seating designed for individuals and small groups 2. Seating nook for contemplation. Looking out over Melbourne 3. Rich biodiverse plantings as a key feature
On level 12, setbacks in the final tower rise of the building also create a large roof terrace. Here, the landscape is designed more like a casual backyard for staff, and is planted with productive fruit trees and edible understorey. This space will form a new type of hospital community garden, linking the health-giving power of fresh garden produce, with the social health benefits of staff working the gardens together in an informal group setting.
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LEVEL 7 ROOF GARDEN PLAN 1. Windflower shade sculpture 2. Lawn area planted with Olive trees 3. Loft café terrace
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4. Hospital tower roof 5. Bottle tree groves 6. Seating and table settings
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1-2. Vegetable and fruit gardens on Level 12 are designed to be maintained and enjoyed by hospital staff. 3. Climbing frames for plants also create shade on the exposed rooftop. 4. View of the young rainforest 5. Native Australian Bottle Trees transplanted from Queensland create immediate impact on the roof terrace.
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Other designed spaces in the project include the level 2 mobility courtyard, where patient’s physical skills are tested and improved, and small “gardens” on level 3, 5 and 6. These are all small rooms, a mix of enclosed and outdoor spaces, and all are designed simply for rest on brightly colored, “park-like” furniture settings. Here, the idea of “Parkville” comes inside the hospital; stepping into these rooms one is stepping outside, both literally and metaphorically. The aim of any hospital is for people to leave as soon as they are able; these gardens become constant reminders of reality outside, and the real places people want to be, healthy, and alive.
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Landscape Architects: MKSK & OLIN | Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA
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Nationwide Children’s Hospital
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hen the acclaimed Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest pediatric hospitals and research institutes in the United States, planned on expanding its campus the MKSK|OLIN team was brought in to develop the surrounding campus and healing gardens. The tower and campus were designed as a cohesive and holistic healing environment that reaches beyond the campus itself, creating opportunities for the institution to become a good neighbor to the community. The project expands the principles of therapeutic gardens to the entire healthcare campus and neighboring community. Green infrastructure practices were incorporated throughout the campus, including rainwater harvesting and a 1-hectare reduction in impervious surface. A 1-million-gallon cistern captures all site and building rainwater runoff for use in irrigating the new park. One third of the new 2.4 hectares of greenspace is an intensive green roof over a subsurface parking garage. The MKSK|OLIN design team worked with the parking consultant to verify loads and depths of engineered soils to support the shade tree plantings, bosques, and ornamental cherry promenade.
1. The sensory-rich fragrance maze and, with its colorful planters filled with lemon and chocolate mints, wild thyme, and garlic chive, in an intensive green roof which sits atop a 430-car underground parking garage
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SITE PLAN
The design for the new hospital park serves the needs of the hospital patients, visiting family, and medical staff, while creating accessible space for surrounding neighborhoods. Adjacent to historic Livingston Park, the new hospital landscape creates a continuous park along the northern edge of Livingston Avenue. Within the hospital park, a series of healing gardens provides an amenity enjoyed by users of all ages
and abilities. A sensory-rich maze of plantings includes lemon and chocolate mints, wild thyme, fluffy lamb’s ear, and colorful snapdragon. The gardens also include a central shady sitting area with playful seating elements, childrensized climbing mounds, outdoor chalk boards, an intimate storytelling area, and a moonlight garden.
1. The “Grove of Light,” a series of illuminated masts, defines the entry into the hospital campus. 2. Surrounded by the lush plantings of the moonlight garden, “mushroom” benches dot the lawn. 3. The precast serpentine “worm” benches appear as if growing from the playful mounds, creating a rhythmic landscape under the dappled shade of the Honey locust bosque. 4. Careful load calculations were performed for the green roof to verify the available soil depths and areas where foam filled would be required, such as under these playful mounds.
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Project Name: Nationwide Children’s Hospital Size: 2.4ha Photography: Matthew Carbone, Matthew Carbone Photography; Nick Fancher, Nick Fancher Photography; Randall Schieber, Randall Schieber Photography; Garry McCauley, Garry McCauley Photography
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FEATURES
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SECTION
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The district’s primary corridors, Livingston and Parsons Avenues were transformed into canopied civic boulevards. MKSK|OLIN incorporated Oak and Elm allées, sidewalks, street furnishings, bus shelters, and bicycle lanes. The avenues have been re-graded to introduce bio-filtration rain gardens, which absorb and
filter street and sidewalk stormwater runoff. At the Parsons and Livingston Avenue intersection, a luminous “Grove of Light,” consisting of clustered illuminated beacons, defines the heart of the hospital campus. Additionally, District Landmarks are proposed at the five key thresholds. These elements are oriented with the
urban street grid and are scaled to both vehicles and pedestrians. Graphics on the softly glowing landmarks reflect the hospital’s new identity standards. The design team created continuity between interior and exterior spaces to provide an enhanced visual and physical connection to natural materials and flora. This relationship is fully realized in the dining courtyard, which connects the hospital tower to the landscape. The dining courtyard is a tranquil area under a dappled canopy of Locust trees and vertical plantings of Virginia Creeper vine, which creates a feeling of woodland surround. The bluestonepaved courtyard is bordered by grooved walls, which are reminiscent of the regional limestone strata of nearby Hocking Hills.
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Designed as a cohesive and holistic healing environment, Nationwide Children’s Hospital expands the principles of therapeutic gardens to the entire healthcare campus and neighboring community. Through the creation of therapeutic public open space, with direct links to the surrounding neighborhood, Nationwide Children’s Hospital set a new pediatric hospital standard for “Healing and Community.”
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1. District Landmark signs demark the five entry points into the hospital campus. 2. The combination of white and tri-color chip LEDs allows for a range of programmed lighting scenes from the illuminated masts. 3. The dining courtyard extends the indoor servery outdoors into the park. Bluestone paving, textured concrete walls, a canopy of Locust trees, and hanging catenary lanterns provide a tranquil respite from the hospital setting. 4. In the evening, the playfully colored maze planters cast a softly glowing rainbow of light.
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INSIGHTS
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Nemours Children’s Hospital Landscape Architects: AECOM Location: Orlando, Florida, USA
In 2008, Nemours received approval from the State of Florida to construct and operate a pediatric healthcare facility, anchored by a children’s hospital in Orlando, Florida. Nemours chose a 60-acre (24-hectare) site in the heart of Lake Nona’s Medical City, on which it built this top-tier pediatric healthcare campus.
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A two-phase master plan was developed to receive a 573,000-squarefoot (53,000sqm), eight-level, uniquely integrated hospital, out-patient, emergency, and a shared core and diagnostic facility, which was executed by highly collaborative architectural and area development team working closely with the owner and multiple hospital staff user groups from the master planning stage to implementation on a LEED certified design solution.
1. The second floor roof garden with lush plants and trees, play elements and a seating area for families 2. Overview of the arrival court and the discovery garden courtyard area
The Master Plan goal was to provide an attractive, yet sustainable, userfriendly environment within a framework for future growth. At the Nemours Children’s Hospital, patients and families will have access to outdoor, family-oriented features including a discovery garden with interactive sensory garden rooms and access to nature trails and an outdoor event lawn, as well as roof-top therapy gardens, all of which include features for playing, learning and healing. The landscape architect led the direction for the Master Plan (successfully refining early plans developed by the architect) to coordinate access, parking, building placement, stormwater design and outdoor places for people. The challenge for the landscape architect was to engage and leverage the ideas of the architect in a manner that would both add to the Landscape Record Vol. 3/2016.06
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1. A series of bio-detention areas and bio-swales can slow site runoff to allow more percolation and filtration. 2. Parking area
Project Name: Nemours Children’s Hospital Landscape Architecture: Pete Sechler, RLA, AICP; Donald G. Wishart, RLA (NO LONGER WITH 1
composition of the building while providing meaningful places for patients, families and staff and preserving the long-term value of the site for the owner. The landscape architect delivered contemporary landscapes that are in keeping with the building style, yet also introducing an interesting
counterpoint of native restoration adjacent to the clean architectural lines. Usable spaces were created at the ground level and at the roof level for both restoration as well as rehabilitation. The site plan was modified to be forward thinking regarding the future development of the site by organizing long-term development potential around a logical structure of circulation, infrastructure, stormwater management and environmental protection.
AECOM); Michael Brown, RLA
SITE PLAN 1. Hospital 2. Clinic 3. Parking garage 4. Data center 5. Parking
Architects: Stanley Beaman & Sears: Betsy Beaman, Veronique Prior, Moses Waindi; Perkins & Will: Dennis Kaiser, Allen Buie, David Collins Civil Engineering: Richard Lis, Harris Civil Engineers Landscape/Hardscape Contractor:
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Todd Haig, Steve Brill, Greenbriar Landscaping Client:
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Nemours Children’s Hospital Site Area: 24ha Photography: AECOM, Orlando, FL RENDERINGS
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INSIGHTS
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The project received a LEED Gold certification in 2013 and will replace the existing clinic currently located near downtown Orlando. The public realm design incorporates a range of water-sensitive design solutions. The +/- 30 acres (12 hectares) that encompass the perimeter of the site was seeded with a diverse mix of native wildflowers and grasses to restore the site to a native upland ecology and a reforested tree canopy to mimic the historic ecosystems of the Lake Nona area prior to any development. The more manicured patient areas of the site display a more highly organized landscape aesthetic but incorporate drought-tolerant native plant material including indigenous species.
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RAINWATER MANAGEMENT DIAGRAM 1. Retention pond 2. Water feature using potable water 3. Stormwater feature through garden 4. Irrigation pond 5. Impervious surface water to pond 6. Water feature using stormwater 7. Stormwater bio-swale
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1-3. The +/-30 acres (12 hectares) that encompass the perimeter of the site were seeded with a diverse mix of native wildflowers and grasses.
Nemours selected the project landscape architect to oversee all of the landscape and hardscape design for the exterior spaces and amenities of the Nemours Children’s Hospital. Phase 1 construction was completed in 2012.
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Stormwater from the building rooftop, the arrival court and the discovery garden courtyard area is captured in a series of bio-detention areas and bio-swales to slow site runoff to allow more percolation and filtration. The site stormwater is used to activate the icon entry sign feature and cleansed with a suspended aquatic planting mat system within the feature before being directed to a site bio-swale for further treatment before entering the stormwater ponds of the Lake Nona master stormwater system.
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Throughout the design process, Nemours had an early and consistent commitment to its patients, staff and visitors. This commitment led to a design created by families, for families and world-class patient care. The creation of an outdoor environment centered on healing, respite and therapy was also important to families. As a result of site landscape restoration, healing gardens and views to the natural landscape from patient rooms, this hospital has been named “a hospital in a garden.” Landscape Record Vol. 3/2016.06
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INSIGHTS
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Upon arrival to the hospital, the visitor is immersed in a lush landscape environment that includes native plants, large live oaks, flowering trees and varying textures and colors throughout the plant palette. A large water feature, which filters stormwater, marks the entrance to the hospital. A second water feature, located near the front doors of the hospital, invites visitors to sit and relax in a calm environment before entering the hospital. Once inside the hospital, large windows frame the Discovery Garden located on the north side of the hospital. This garden includes programmable spaces for small events, outdoor dining, while providing a respite from the busy indoor environment. The Discovery Garden is envisioned to include five “sensory rooms.� These outdoor rooms are designed to encourage children to interact with their senses and become more aware of their surroundings through play and learning. At the north end of the Discovery Garden these sensory rooms give way to a natural landscape that has been restored with native grasses and perennials. A trail leads visitors around a large pond while exploring the natural landscape surrounding them. Two roof gardens are located on different floors of the hospital. The second floor roof garden includes lush plants and trees, play elements and a seating
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area for families. This garden serves as an outdoor waiting room next to the surgical commons. The fourth floor roof garden also includes lush plants and trees and is used for therapy. Infusion patients and their families are also welcome to use this space. This therapy garden includes elements such as steps, ramps, varying paving treatments, seats and a lawn area. These elements are meant to rehabilitate patients while providing a comfortable healing outdoor environment. Healthcare facilities and their environments benefit from having outdoor spaces for their patients, staff and visitors. The healing properties of welldesigned outdoor space have been proven to increase the rate at which an individual heals and decreases the amount of medication needed for pain. There is good evidence that a healing garden can reduce levels of pain and stress and, by doing that, boost the patient’s immune system in ways that allow their body and other treatments to help them heal.
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1-2. Drought-tolerant native plant materials including indigenous species are incorperated into the site. 3. Signage, car parking and lush planting 4. View of the second floor garden 5-6. An activate water feature at the entrance of the hospital
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INTERVIEW
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Landscape Architecture for Health and Well-being - An Interview with Michael Wright, rush\wright associates
Michael Wright Managing Director of rush\wright associates B.LArch (Hons) RMIT CertLandsTech VCAH-Burnley Michael Wright has a wide-ranging track record in landscape design and construction, having worked on projects at every scale from small private courtyards to entire new city plans. He has also
Landscape Record (LR): What in your opinion is Therapeutic Landscape? Michael Wright (MW): Therapeutic landscapes are designed to bring people closer to the natural environment where it is needed most. Patients and cares in clinical health environments have traditionally become very distant from the natural world, and health care has become a sanitized, usually interior phenomenon occurring in often anonymous, universally designed and uniform hospital and health environments. Nature is usually banished, and the health benefits of contact with, and views into natural scenes are not valued.
worked as a horticulturist, stonemason,
LR: What are the relations between landscape architecture and psychology? What can landscape architects learn from psychological research? MW: Like other fine arts Landscape Architecture contributes to cultures and societies at very deep level, creating knowledge and insight, as well as demonstrating new ways of living. As a contributor to the healthy design of new environments, landscape architecture can become the physical extension of an approach to health and well-being that considers all parts of the experience of individuals. Research in Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Center
design-construct contractor, and for two years was a lecturer in design at the University of New South Wales.
psychology considers all aspects of a person’s environment, and landscape architects – and architects – can learn much from this.
Michael’s 30 years of experience underpins his approach to the resolution of projects from conception to detail. His
LR: How do therapeutic landscapes and healing gardens benefit those who suffer from physical or psychological diseases? Are there any economic benefits?
intuitive responses to each project are site based and result in unique design approaches for every landscape and urban design proposition.
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MW: There is now ample evidence available from primary research on the health benefits of access to nature and “therapeutic gardens” in health provider settings and of course in the wider urban environment. Even acute metrics of recovery times, patient symptoms and other easily measurable criteria improve when access to nature and healing landscapes become part of a holistic treatment train. These flow on into shorter hospital stay times, reduced demands on health services, and ultimately a reduced cost of treatment. This creates markedly increased
economic benefits arising from improved productivity and decreased costs for the health system generally. The “cost” of creating therapeutic gardens needs to be seen as an investment in improved outcomes and reduced long-term healthcare costs.
LR: How should landscape architects choose the right plants for therapeutic landscapes? Are there any plants you prefer? Why? MW: Plant selection for therapeutic landscapes needs to consider the positive benefits of plant selection alongside some of the risks involved in growing living plants in healthcare environments. These risks include infection control from fungi and other water- and soil-borne pathogens, as well as risks from acute toxicities and allergies. All plantings need to be assessed for these risks and carefully placed to minimize these risks in the design. All environments will be a
little different, resulting in the need to fine tune planting selections for each project. Being sure that a strong structure for the planting design in resilient foliage plants is a key ingredient will mean that all seasonal changes will happen with a viable background that works in the design year-round. There are also many opportunities to include sources of treatments, such as naturopathic medicines, in the planting designs. These may be used for demonstrating the origins of medicines and a different kind of plant knowledge that can be shared directly with patients. Other selection criteria would include the more basic sensory attributes of color, scent, texture, touch and other attributes that might guide planting design in a therapeutic setting.
LR: Therapeutic landscape is definitely not only about softscape. Any special attention to be paid when working on hardscape? Landscape Record Vol. 3/2016.06
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