The garden spaces at this hospital were well looked after by the fantastic team of volunteers. However, they were not being used to their full potential and we worked with the hospital charity to explore how we could get more staff and patients out of the wards and using these gardens. We had the spaces to work with and needed to find a way to unlock their use and improve access.
We came up with a series of sketches that explored how each garden space could become a sanctuary in its own right by making them easily accessible and letting people know about them. We introduced covered seating areas, spaces to pause, spaces for reflection and spending time in nature and other areas where people could congregate for lunchbreaks or meetings.
The research and knowledge gained from this project opened up interesting themes around the importance of access and views to green spaces in hospitals and how this can lead to improved healing outcomes. This can also cross-translate into our work in other sectors, such as residential and community, and we now use this knowledge base to help improve the designs of these projects.
