In 2012 Greenstone Design was newly launched in New Zealand. Founder, Gayle Souter-Brown, had a dream to build a team of passionate people to serve the needs of communities across Australasia. She had started with Greenstone Design UK and was keen to use her experience of UK, Europe, and Africa at home. First though, she needed to get the message out that we need to re-evaluate the landscape component in our development schemes. New housing, affordable housing, schools, hospitals and care homes have been designed and built with low cost amenity strips that do little to lift mood, alleviate social isolation, raise aspiration. Some people would say there was no money to do anything else. How could a garden, a patch of grass or a tree do anything other than look pretty, let alone boost health and well-being? Gayle Souter-Brown would say "you don't need a bigger budget, you just need to think a little, to see the connections and create the opportunities". 

After a lengthy scientific peer review process of the book proposal, in November 2012 a contract with Routledge Press, London, was signed. It detailed that a book would be researched and written, within 12 months, explaining to academics and practitioners why it was worth their while rethinking their approach and their expectation of what was achievable. It had to be 100,000 words long and include 200 full colour images, +/- 10%, or the contract would be forfeited. The title took a while to finalise but the editor decided the more key words the more likely it was that people would find the book, read it, and act. Landscape and Urban Design for Health and Well-Being: Using Healing, Sensory and Therapeutic Gardens was delivered as a manuscript, late, on the 6th January 2014. 

It took 8 months of Routledge Press's editing, copy editing and typesetting, checking and double-checking, to bring the book to fruition as a 318 page paper and ink reality. On 6th August 2014 it was released into the European market. 6 weeks later it was printed simultaneously in New York and Toronto and released in Canada, the US, NZ and Australia. 

Meanwhile, the real work has continued. The design team has grown. Greenstone Design UK has flourished, with new projects in Russia, Tanzania and of course, nationally around the UK. Enquiries for an eco resort project in Azerbaijan are responded to with as much dedication as a small London charity in need of a community space. Greenstone Design in NZ has grown to become recognised as providing leading research-based design and review services. Public space - the gritty streetscapes, hospitals, schools, dementia care and aged care, Early Childhood centres and social housing have all been subjected to the Greenstone Design signature salutogenic design appraisal. Examples from these projects fill the book, sitting alongside research and discoveries from the world's greatest thinkers.

There is a blog by Gayle Souter-Brown, about Salutogenic Design, on Routledge's website . Biophilia, bio-diverse planting, planting for health and well-being, soft landscapes and sensory-rich spaces are all part of the recipe for a healthy dose of Landscape and Urban Design for Health and Well-Being: Using Healing, Sensory and Therapeutic Gardens. 

This week I'm travelling the length of NZ with the NZIA. I and 2 other urban designers - Steve Thorne and Dr Angelique Edmonds - are presenting the 2014 urban design speaker series.

It is interesting to see who comes along. The 3 presentations all come from different perspectives but each reach the same conclusion. Urban design for health and well being is more than just an interesting topic of research , more than a soon-to-be short-lived 'new fangled idea' . Urban design for health and well being offers architects, planners and policy makers an opportunity to contribute to the liveability ratings and functional wellness of a community.

It requires big thinking and a collaborative approach. If we take responsibility for our designs we acknowledge the impact environmental design can make. Community gardens, roof top gardens, parks and pocket green space combine with the built environment to affect mental health, stress and depression. These problems occur within education, social housing and the workplace, in fact wherever there are people who are stressed by their environment. In these situations salutogenic design interventions become cost effective, achievable goals.

We are getting the message out but more people need to join the conversation. We have both a challenge and an opportunity to fundamentally make a difference to the health and well being if our client communities. Care to join us?

Today I blogged about natural play in schools. Biophilia and living cities rely on us as designers and you as clients to work together to create natural play opportunities so young and old can connect with nature. If we are to effect social, economic and environmental change we need opportunities to create landscapes for health and well-being, in schools and early years settings, around social housing, and in public gardens. Children, and their parents, need accessible, convenient nature connection points. 

Sustainable, playable, urban design can be used to create resilient communities. Urban trees, street trees and natural play opportunities combine to protect and enhance the mental health of our people. We cannot stop the hubris of the modern world, but we can design environments that afford spaces for quiet contemplation, places where we can pause and reflect.

Over the years I have set up a variety of blogs. Some are updated more frequently than others. The Blogger blog is an oldie but a goodie. Rather than rewriting today's post here I thought I would just share the link. I hope you enjoy it. 

Forest bathing or Shinrin-yoku refers to time spent walking in forests. In Japan the practice has been studied by forestry, agriculture and health officials. The rest of the world is now catching on to the idea that rather than being a nice-to-have feature, urban forests are vital to balance the health effects of modern life.

Walking in forests (shinrin-yoku) may prevent the onset of chronic illnesses like cancers, reduce blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormones (which may have a preventive effect on hypertension).  It is also credited with creating calming psychological effects through changes observed in parasympathetic and sympathetic nerves. 

Forest bathing appears to increase the level of serum adiponectin--a hormone that in lower concentrations is associated with obesity, type 2 DM (diabetes mellitus), cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome, among other metabolic disorders. A combined study found shinrin-yoku reduces anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue and feelings of emotional confusion.

For the full study findings, click here

Last weekend I was fortunate to be invited to address the Rotary District Conference in Methven, New Zealand. I talked to the 300 + assembled members about design for health and well-being. The group was mixed in terms of age, sex and profession. Some were farmers, there were also business people, people in manufacturing  in tourism, doctors, architects, engineers, accountants, retailers and wholesalers. A really diverse group. What they share in common is a desire to serve their communities and make the world a better place. So it was natural that I offer some ideas for how they could collaborate with the people on the ground, engage their communities, and put their considerable talents and energy to good use.

Rotary International worked to eradicate polio. They work on programmes that affect the health and well-being of people in many different ways. Health and well-being through environmental, economic and social enhancement is central to the ethos of Greenstone Design. How we achieve that, on limited budgets and often in tight time frames requires us to get creative. When we're not creating sensory- rich gardens we like to create spaces for play.

Natural play is a wonderful thing. It takes very little by way of manufactured resources but requires us to allow a little mess and creativity. Central to enjoying a sense of well-being is being able to play, freely, to explore, to create, challenge ourselves, try out new things, test our confidence and make new friends in safe surroundings. There is a wonderful short video showcasing the collaborative design process.

I'm heading off to Moscow, Russia, next week to design a natural playground. We were fortunate to win the design competition with our concept for nature play, set within a massive manufactured space. I will post photos when I have some. The client is a large international school that caters for 3-19 year olds. Our design aims to improve the cognitive functioning of the children, counter any potential for depression by being an expressive space where children are encouraged to engage with nature on a daily basis. It also acknowledges our biophilia, our in-built love of living things. It's a fun project that allows me to play; at this stage with ideas, and in a few months, alongside the children in their new natural play space.

"It's important that play environments are as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible," Dr. Sandseter says.

There is increasing press coverage of the benefits of risk in play. Last week there was an article in the Wall Street Journal. When we give our children opportunities to play outdoors, freely interacting with nature and the environment around them they develop an awareness of and a very healthy connection to that environment. Where and how we play as children shapes who we are as adults.

As our cities aim to intensify their urban form it is ever more important to remember to provide for the children who live in our communities. Many children in New Zealand and Australia are growing up in apartments designed for 'singles' or 'couples', not families. Children are mandated for in some countries as requiring 15sqm of outdoor play space, per child. There is no such requirement in Australasia, yet.

When we look at the numbers of children and their needs for risky, natural play we need to look closely at the availablity of urban open space. We need to look at how many urban forests or groves of trees and grassy or limed patches are there within our cities, within a 5 minute walk from home?

Providing abundant  'safe as necessary' play opportunities requires developers, city planners and designers to acknowledge the mental health impacts, the public health impacts of children's sensory development and their need for natural play.

While a collection of trees do not an urban forest make, they do make a wonderful home for birds and beneficial bugs and a setting for sitting out, playing in the shade, playing in, eating from. These trees were retained, and some new mature specimens added, when the social housing blocks were redeveloped by Wellington City Council.

These trees transform what would otherwise be a  fairly bleak, open space

Contrast the courtyard area above with this purpose-designed care home space and you can immediately see the difference trees make to a living environment. 

Trees take an institutional setting and make it 'home'. We have been brought in to transform this space and bring it to life, both to enhance the lives of residents, and the local environment. A real win:win. 

Tomorrow I'm meeting with Christchurch's city arborist. We're going to discuss the role the urban forest can play in the health & well being of a redeveloped Christchurch. In the UK GPs are already prescribing a 'green' treatment for early stage depression, whereby people are given a prescription not for expensive medication but for a walk in a forest for 20 minutes, 3 times a week.

Landscape architecture has an important role to play in the sustainable design of the city. Sensory gardens are those gardens that are designed to stimulate the senses, to do more than just look good, but to function on a human scale, providing food, shelter, habitat and employment. Urban forests can be the ultimate sensory garden, when planted with mixed natives, fruit and nut trees, and designed for year round interest, to attract native birds and invertebrates.

Urban trees represent an irreplaceable asset for cities, and unlike most municipal infrastructure a trees’ value will increase over its life span. In technical terms, an urban forest refers to the trees located within a city’s limits, whether planted or naturally occurring.

Check out the link to the Danish Architecture Centre's article on Edmonton's trees.

As much as being stuck in depressing places and losing your way can diminish healthcare objectives, so can the wrong type of green spaces.

Over the last 50 years or so, shopping centres and office lobbies have demeaned the value of natural features with their plastic plants and feeble fountains. Such token greenery has rendered nature invisible - a virtual green wallpaper we no longer see, or benefit from.

A study by Massey University found that to be effective in reducing stress and countering depression / improving mood in hospital, retail and office based settings, greenery needs to be real and it needs to be placed sympathetically. " "Street" style navigation is logical, allowing services to be grouped together, with access and waiting areas pleasantly defined by greenery.

All the hard work has paid off. Finally, after months of late nights, mulitple cups of coffee and pots of tea, the website is up and running. Greenstone Design's brand of ethical, low maintenance, sensory landscape architecture + sustainable design has officially arrived in New Zealand.

Greenstone Design UK has been around for a while but when my husband got head hunted home it was the perfect opportunity to open a new office down under. We have now been here 9 months, exhibited a sustainable sensory garden at the Ellerslie International Flower Show, designed a family Eco garden for the Wellington Home and Building Show, run the first Garden Design workshop and as of this month have 2 residential, 1 commercial and 1 public sector clients on the go. Our design team is growing and we can now offer full surveys and engineering reports as part of the wider Greenstone Design offering. Life is always busy, never dull.

I will be updating the pages regularly as I'm a bit of a fiddler and a perfectionist. So check back soon! (and do tell me if you find any glitches, typos or just have a question)

This blog will be my oportunity to post thoughts and ideas, as they happen. It won't be regular but will be worth reading I hope! Please comment as you feel the urge.

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