New therapy garden opens - 25.10.2011

Denmark’s first research-based therapy garden will soon be opened. The Healing Forest Garden Nacadia, which is being built at Hørsholm Arboretum, will offer therapy for individuals on sick leave with stress-related symptoms. Official opening and Open House event in November.

 

The Healing Forest Garden Nacadia, which has been on the drawing board since 2007, will open in November and on 27 November from 13:00-15:00 there will be an Open House event where the therapy garden will be open to the public.

 

 

 

The Healing Forest Garden Nacadia has been realised through the support of the foundations Realdania, Det Obelske Familiefond and G.B. Hartmanns Familiefond under the project management of Ulrika K. Stigsdotter, Forest & Landscape, University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the Danish University and Property Agency (client), SWECO Architects (consultants) as well as the Kalmia stress centre (in charge of therapy).

 

Healing Forest Garden Nacadia

Nacadia will be a full-scale laboratory where people suffering from stress can receive treatment, and where research and teaching will be conducted in the relationship between the natural world, people, design and health. At the same time, Nacadia will be a demonstration facility for this sort of therapy.

Nacadia’s design is based on documented experience and research results that provide an insight into how the garden and the existing buildings can meet the specific needs, wishes and requirements of the patient group.

The garden has been designed to support the therapeutic process while offering meaningful activities and experiences for its users.

In shaping the garden, the emphasis has been on the patients’ expected therapeutic process, so that those who, for example, need to spend time and walk about undisturbed in the garden can do so, while other parts of the garden are intended for joint activities.

 

The therapy garden covers an area of 9,700 square metres in the area of the arboretum planted with North American and North European shrubs and trees. The garden is designed to appear as a wild forest garden with a natural, dynamic and vigorous look.

With funding from Realdania, Forest & Landscape, University of Copenhagen, has collated research results and experience about therapy gardens, and has developed a concept model for future therapy gardens.

 

Forest & Landscape has developed a therapy concept for garden therapy, which will form the basis for treatments at the garden: Development of the Nature-Based Therapy Concept for Patients with Stress-Related Illness at Nacadia” (PDF).

It is important to emphasise that both the treatment methods and the design of the garden are dynamic and are expected to change as new experience is acquired.

 

Forthcoming research/evaluation

In 2012, a research project entitled NEST (Nacadia Effect Study) will start. The aim of the project is to study the effect of Nacadia’s garden therapy compared with other stress therapies. The garden’s influence will thus also be evaluated. The project is financed by the Trygfonden foundation.

 

Please contact Forest & Landscape, University of Copenhagen, if you have any questions about Nacadia:

 

Ulrika K. Stigsdotter, project manager, associate professor and landscape architect:  +45 3533 1786

Sus Sola Corazon, MA (Ed) in Educational Psychology and PhD student: / +45 3533 1756

 

Victoria Linn Lygum, landscape architect and PhD student: / +45 3050 5316

 

Maja Steen Møller, landscape architect and research assistant: / +45 3533 1804

 

More information is available (in Danish) at Konceptmodellen for Terapihaven Nacadia (PDF).

 

If you have any questions about patient admission, please contact:

Stressklinikken Kalmia
Kirkegårdsvej 3A
DK-2970 Hørsholm
Tel. +45 4546 1600