Extract

With increasing prevalence of mental illness and domestic violence incidents, there is an ever-growing need for supplying supportive and rehabilitative social and health services. In its current state, the healthcare infrastructure, transitional services, and communities are isolated from one another, creating physical and mental barriers for rehabilitation. Therapeutic landscape research suggests outdoor spaces can facilitate rehabilitative healing, community support, and self-empowerment. This form of preventative and rehabilitative health may bridge the gap between treatment at the institutional level, and day-to-day living, to better support the well-being of vulnerable people. The under-utilised interface between the residential landscape and Kenepuru Community Hospital in Porirua, New Zealand, is used as a case study for testing how therapeutic landscapes may enable hospital infrastructure, residential housing and transitional landscapes to coexist with mutually beneficial relationships. Results suggest that suitable urban integration of these services through therapeutic landscapes will promote well-being for future inhabitants and for the wider community, thus mediating healthcare stigmas.

PDF

Download