For children with cancer, experiences are often limited to the sterile boundaries of their hospital rooms. So for her final project, fifth-year landscape architecture student Elizabeth August designed a hypothetical therapeutic garden for juvenile cancer patients. By designing this garden, August hopes to create an outlet for young cancer patients and their families that provides a comfortable environment. It is important, August said, for kids who are stuck in a hospital to be able to get away once in a while, and this garden will allow them to do that.
"I definitely wanted to pick a topic that I knew would keep my interest throughout the entire year," August said.
Her interest in therapeutic gardens was sparked by her seven-month internship with Hitchcock Design Group, an Illinois firm that does a lot of work in therapeutic landscapes.
"I think it would just help those kids so much," she said.
Assistant Professor of landscape architecture Chris Marlow agrees that the children should be kept in mind while designing this garden.
"I try to think of being a kid," he said. "It's important to have a place to go to take your mind off of cancer, someplace outdoors."
August chose the Hair Fairy Project as the garden's theme when she heard about Kim Martin, founder of the non-profit organization, who wrote an alphabet book for children being treated for cancer.
"The Hair Fairy theme is not only current, but it's given the design a focus that connects with the kids," Martha Hunt, August's advisor specializing in therapeutic landscapes, said. "It's allowed her to really explore more creative avenues in the garden."
Before going to the drawing board, August had to research her three topics of interest for the project: therapeutic gardens, children's gardens and children's play. She found that kids often feel threatened in a hospital setting, and they suffer from separation.
"They miss their families, friends and pets," August said.
Hospitalized children suffer from more than just separation, August said. They also become anxious and irritable from being sick and from undergoing painful treatments.
"The biggest thing that affected my design is that when kids are sick, they're really sick and they need to stay in their hospital rooms," August said. "But when they're feeling better, they want to play. They want to run around and play, which is so different from adults."
Spangler said that August has taken the safety of the children into consideration in both her design and her site choice.
"It's a very safe environment," he said. "There's no fear that the children will run into the street."
COURTYARD, DESIGN, ELEMENTS
A requirement of the project is to choose an existing site and build off of the elements. August went to Riley Hospital for Children in search of a site. She worked with Alison Pacheco, a construction engineer for Clarion Health Partners, to choose a courtyard outside the hospital.
"The way Liz is approaching this is key," Hunt said. "Every kid needs a place to play. In a hospital setting, kids are typically shut off from the outside. This space would allow them to be able to go out to a garden and help the healing process."
Since the project began, she has pictured children running and playing outdoors despite their illnesses. That has remained the inspiration for her garden.
"A wide circular pathway for running allows never-ending entertainment for children," August said. "The other paths are naturalistic so that they remain unseen and secretive."
There are many water elements included in August's designs because her research shows that water can reduce a person's blood pressure, respiration and heart rate. In her design, she transforms those facts into trickling waterfalls that produce soothing sounds that fill the garden.
"I think it would help Riley a lot to have a space like that, but creating more fairies that the children can relate to," August said. "It's not just a hospital for children with cancer, it's a hospital for children."
Other patients at Riley will be able to go outside for fresh air and entertainment. Also, the staff will have a place to leave on breaks to relax or escape momentarily from work.
"Liz is providing a place for children, parents, families, staff and administrators to smell the roses," Professor Ron Spangler said. "It's a place for them to just go for a while and rejuvenate their confidence in life."
One section was designed to be a children's activity area with giant shade structures and natural-looking slides.
German Dance Chimes provide soothing sounds when stepped on and provide a way for kids to make music while walking around the paths in the garden.
"It is also kind of related to fairies because of the chime sounds that ring like Tinkerbell," August said.
One important concept that August wants to express in the design of the garden is a sense of belonging for the patients. The garden connects them to things that they're familiar with, as well as caters to their needs and abilities, she said.
The designs display the Hair Fairy poem engraved into the sidewalk at the entrance to the garden. August hopes to include large statues of the hair fairies in her final designs to show them interacting with the plants.
"I think it'd be neat to incorporate them with a flower," August said. "And maybe have one of them asleep in a bell shaped flower to show that this is where the fairies live."
One wall is concrete, and, August said, boring. Her design includes an artist painting murals on the wall of fairies, castles, mushrooms and flowers.
August's designs not only change parts of the courtyard, they also build off of existing elements. She included an existing reception area in her design to provide different seating options for visitors. The wide paths allow for wagons to easily carry patients throughout the garden. The low-growing plants as well as the bell-shaped flowers provide a fairy-like atmosphere. Her drawings include a bridge that crosses over the flowing water and a wishing well.
Aside from providing time for interaction, the garden would provide a private section for grieving or visiting families.
"For hospital patients and their families, there is very little to offer them in terms of places to mourn in an outdoor environment," Marlow said. "This garden would be creating something for them that they don't have."
In order to make it a fun night experience for the children, August used firefly lamps and twinkling firefly lights placed sporadically throughout the courtyard in trees and shrubs to make the garden seem enchanted.
"She wants it to be really magical at night," Martin said.
The most illuminating feature is the central focal point for the courtyard - an eternal flame surrounded by water.
Hunt said that using abstract art can sometimes be detrimental to patients dealing with life and death illnesses because they often see negative things among the abstractions. The eternal flame posed such a concern for August and Hunt.
"Liz really explored it to make sure that it would fit in the garden and not have negative consequences," Hunt said.
August wanted to keep the eternal flame as the centerpiece for her design because of its emotional impact and for what it represents.
"It symbolizes brave and noble people," August said. "So it's really an important thing to keep in that garden."
"Cancer gives a sudden, life-changing impact where the world is never again quite the same for children with cancer, it affects their families, their siblings, their whole world, including their world of imagination and play." - Lisa Murray, Art therapist who helped children with cancer.
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