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Students Help Design Therapeutic Garden in Fergus
Course project becomes more than just a grade for landscape architecture students
BY ANDREW VOWLES
A new therapeutic garden to be developed this year at a mental health clinic in downtown Fergus will have roots in student projects at U of G.
Besides providing design ideas for the garden, the University's involvement has helped secure vital funding, says clinic supervisor Kim Muller. Late last year, the clinic received $60,000 from the province to develop the project.
The garden will be based on a design done for a fourth-year thesis project by Lee Morrison, who worked with Prof. Nate Perkins, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD); Morrison graduated from Guelph last spring. In addition, the garden will probably use elements of drawings done last year by BLA students taking first-year design courses with SEDRD professors Karen Landman and Rob Corry.
Exhibited last year on campus and during an open house in Fergus, those drawings helped raise awareness of the project, says Muller. Having designs in hand was also a big help when the clinic applied for funding, he says.
“Karen's students put the ideas to paper — they put in visual terms what we had imagined. It was an absolute gift to have those designs.”
This rural community outreach project has involved students and faculty from SEDRD programs in both landscape architecture and capacity development and extension (CDE), says Landman. “It's a great link between the two programs in the school.”
In 2005, two CDE graduate students had consulted with clinic staff to learn about the varied needs of patients and visitors at the facility. Users range from children to seniors with varied disabilities and mental health issues. The clinic shares its building with a day program for people with Alzheimer's disease.
About 50 first-year BLA students used that information along with a site visit to work out designs. They also consulted with Dr. Joanne Westphal, a physician and landscape architecture professor in Michigan who visited Guelph last year to discuss therapeutic landscape design.
The proposed garden will occupy a vacant lot next door to the clinic building. Students had to consider such design elements as mixed shade and sun and a steep slope near the street.
“The challenge for the students was to take a small space and create a garden that would suit many users,” says Landman. “When they see how it affects people's lives, it's not just a course project to get a grade. These are real people.”