Water, wood, stone, light, and nature

With birdsong a repeated symbol of freedom expressed by many, this garden was founded on deep engagement with staff so as to understand the most suitable conditions to prepare users of the service to feel comfortable and talk.  The facility has created supportive inside-outside gardens with the natural elements of life as the common thread shared by people from all sides of conflicts across the globe.

The courtyard garden was delivered for the Medical Foundation in a highly integrated solution with Ryder Architecture so that the calming effects of nature would be experienced from the waiting room so as to aid the charity’s work supporting of torture survivors.

A deeply humbling project from the outset we understood that the design response had to be sensitive to the needs of its potential users, providing an area of respite and calm reflection that would be accessible for all and could provide both individual contemplation and group meetings.

Calming views to the garden and links to the building’s interior were created using a stream water feature that emerges over slate panels in the waiting room and winds through the garden, terminating in a sculptural ‘sky bowl’ lily pool surrounded by stone paving, a sculpted oak bench and scented planting with framed upward views of the sky.