Restorative Gardens: The Healing Landscape [Hardcover]

Ms. Nancy Gerlach-Spriggs (Author), Richard Kaufman (Author), Sam Bass Warner Jr. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300072384 | ISBN-13: 978-0300072389 | Publication Date: October 11, 1998 | Edition: 1

Restorative gardens for the sick, which were a vital part of the healing process from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, provided ordered settings in which patients could begin to heal, both physically and mentally. In this book, a landscape architect, a physician and a historian examine the history and role of restorative gardens to show why it is important to again integrate nature into the institutional - and largely factorylike - settings of modern health care facilities. The authors present the history of restorative gardens and studies six American health care centers that cherish the role of their gardens in the therapeutic process. These institutions are examined in detail: community hospitals in Wasau, Wisconisn, and Monterey, California; a full-care mental institution in Philadelphia; a nursing home in Queens; a facility for rehabilitative medicine in New York City; and a hospice in Houston. In their comprehensive review the authors suggest that contemporary scientific understanding clearly recognizes the beneficial physiological effects of garden environments on patients' well-being. The book ends with a plea to make gardens - rather than the shopping mall atria so often seen in newly renovated hospitals - a vital part of the medical milieu.

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

The idea of a garden as an adjunct to high-tech medicine in the treatment of patients is not widely entertained, but the three authors argue that it should be. "Whatever the precise design, a restorative garden is a healing landscape," they say. "It can sometimes be soothing in its sensitivity or stimulating in its exuberance, but at either extreme it is intended to engage the viewer in an act of invigoration." Gerlach- Spriggs is a landscape designer, Kaufman a physician and Warner a professor of urban studies. They combine their interests to describe, with numerous supporting photographs and drawings, six gardens of the kind they have in mind: at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York City, Queen of Peace Residence in Queens Village, N.Y., the Hospice at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, Wausau Hospital in Wausau, Wis., and Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, Calif. At each place, the authors found that the garden's effects touched staff as well as patients, resulting in "an emphasis on individualized, meticulous, intimate caring for the patient." A restorative garden in a health care setting, the authors say, provides a "touch of grace [that] goes remarkably far in restoring personhood to patienthood."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (October 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300072384
• ISBN-13: 978-0300072389
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)