Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In today’s hectic society more and more people experience stress and our lifestyle gives us a very limited chance to recover. For some it sometimes goes that far that they get burnt-out, they have pushed themselves to the ultimate limit. There are different methods and treatments to recover but one very efficient treatment is to spend time in a rehabilitation garden. There the patients get treated by therapeutics that uses the garden as the main tool.

The fact that gardens and parks have a positive effect on humans have been used by people for a long time but it’s not until recently that the research has taken speed. The area is still relatively unexplored but the interest is constantly growing bigger. There is no real answer to why we are affected as we are by green environments but several scientists have developed theories about the subject. On theory argue that we through evolution have developed into getting calm by nature. A different theory says that we have two types of attention where one type is energy demanding and the other one isn’t. This is where nature would cause the non energy demanding attention to set in. A third theory claims that certain relations demands more than others, for example are the relation to nature less demanding for a person than the relation to other people.

To design a rehabilitation garden it’s above all the function of the garden that needs to be looked over. The garden is supposed to work healing and only give positive effects on the patients, that’s why all negative distractions need to be eliminated. Since we are all different and have various needs it’s urgent to create places that work for everyone in the garden. It may be useful to divide the garden into several rooms with different characteristics and functions.

The purpose of the essay is for me to get a greater knowledge in environmental psychology trough studies in literature. As a landscape architect it’s fundamental to have a good knowledge in this subject to plan for different outer environments and it’s completely indispensible when it comes to rehabilitation gardens.