Healthcare Design - November 2015 - 54

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HEALING GARDENS
T H E R O L E O F FA B R I C F O R S H A D E & S E AT I N G

The ancient concept of nature as healing
diminished as technology propelled medical
advances of the 20th century. Today, backed
by extensive research, healthcare providers
realize anew the important role nature can
play in reducing patient stress, improving
health outcomes and humanizing conditions
for family members and medical staff.
Healing gardens are best designed to
improve mental, physical and social
well-being when they facilitate a sense of
control and access to privacy, encourage
social support and exercise and give
users a means to spend time in nature.
Performance fabric shade structures
and seating offer many options in how
gardens are used and the level of privacy
they provide. Group interaction, private
conversation or quiet observation can
all be accommodated in comfort when
appropriate fabric shade structures and
seating are selected.

Upon completion of this
continuing education unit
course, you will be able to:
* Recall the inception of healing
gardens and the studies that led
to their creation
* List benefits of a healing garden
to patients, families, healthcare
workers, and the environment
* Describe the goals of a successful
healing garden and some of the
garden elements that support
these goals
* Summarize the considerations for
designing shade and seating for
a healing garden
* Identify the fabric selection
considerations for both shade
and seating elements

Coraline, an honorable mention
winner in the 2015 Sunbrella Future of
Shade competition, takes inspiration
from sea coral and represents new
thinking on shade designs for healing
gardens and other public spaces.

LEARNING UNITS
This course is worth 1 Learning Unit/Health
Safety and Welfare Hour in the American
Institute of Architects Continuing Education
System. This course is worth:
* American Institute of Architects 1 Learning Unit
* Interior Design Continuing Education
Council - 0.1 Continuing Education Unit
* Landscape Architecture Continuing
Education System - 1.0 Professional
Development Hour

N AT U R E I S H E A L I N G
The idea of nature as restorative is a concept
that spans cultures and is more than a thousand
years old. Contact with nature has long been
seen as beneficial for health and well-being.
The World Health Organization formalized
a definition of health more than 65 years ago
in the Preamble to its Constitution as,
"a complete state of physical, mental
and social well-being, and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity."
Defining health with this broad definition
encompasses the understanding that there are

many dimensions of wellness-and wellness is
compromised when one or more dimensions
is out of balance. The human connection with
nature is a bond that can foster healing to
restore the balance; early medical practitioners
understood this.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, monastery
infirmaries included gardens, often elaborate,
to distract the ill. In the 1800s in both Europe
and America, pavilion-style hospitals were
commonly designed with gardens for the
patients to use.
Florence Nightingale, nurse and public health
reformer, wrote in 1898 that patients should
be able to see out of windows from their
beds, "to see sky and sunlight at least, if you
can show them nothing else...I assert [this]
to be, if not of the very first importance for
recovery, at least something very near it."
(Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It
Is Not)
Those involved in caring for the sick
intuitively understood that views and access
to nature were therapeutic, even though
they did not understand why.
Healthcare Design - November 2015

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