Landscape architects share an inherent desire to design unique places that promote the health, safety and welfare of users. Integral to this goal is the creation of places where the user is positively impacted. Since the beginnings of garden design, landscape spaces were intended to improve the health and wellbeing of users; from Zen Buddhist gardens like Ryōan-ji to Europe’s first mental health asylums, garden designers have long created spaces that draw on the healing power of nature, with outdoor spaces integral to the healing process. This study hypothesizes that a landscape can be designed to assist in the restorative and therapeutic process for patients suffering from mental traumas such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that occurs after a person experiences a traumatic event outside the norm of human experience (APA, 2000).
Justification for this study is the millions of Americans that suffer from this debilitating mental disorder. However, one segment of the population stands as a high profile focus of mental health media concern (Doa et al. 2011, Goode 2011, Vogel 2011). Of the 2 million soldiers returning from the recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, some 300,000 are estimated to be suffering from PTSD (Doa, 2011) Not only are the veterans affected, but spouses, families, and the community at large, feel the impacts, with the costs measured in failed marriages, disabled workers, dysfunctional families and a host of other societal tolls (Garske, 2011).
In order to better serve these afflicted men and women of the military, this study responds to the need for evidence based design of landscape spaces that provide an armature for active and clinically supervised PTSD therapy. This need stems from a call from the American Society of Landscape Architect’s (ASLA) Healthcare and Therapeutic Design Network, who appealed for research and design within this topic realm (Mittrione, 2008).
The design and function of such PTSD therapy spaces is based on analysis of specific treatment protocols, veteran symptomology, battlefield spatial analysis and healing garden research. The methodology follows the evidence based design process: researching the foundation literature in both design and counseling, eliciting information from experts through interviews, and the synthesis of spatial analysis information to produce design guidelines. With these evidence based guidelines, a design for PTSD Therapy is developed on a case study site. The test site design for PTSD therapy is critically reviewed by a panel of experts from potential user groups (Occupational Therapists, Clinical Counselors, and Veteran's Affairs personnel), as well as design professionals schooled in aesthetics, healing and/or therapeutic space design. Together the collected evidence provides a process and methodology which may be replicated, evaluated and expanded upon in future studies.