Bloom Dementia Friendly Gardens 2017/2018

Research Pillar: Healthy and Inclusive Places

Project Name/Title/Acronym: Bloom Dementia Friendly Gardens 2017 and 2018

Funding Body: Enterprise Ireland

Project Partners: TrinityHaus, Newton Saunders, Engaging Dementia (formerly Sonas APC), TLC Nursing Home Group, Understand Together, HSE, and the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland

Project Timeframe: 2017-2018

Key Output(s): Dementia Friendly Garden (Silver, Bloom 2017; Bronze, Bloom 2018) :

Project Description:

The aim of the Dementia Friendly Garden projects was to raise awareness of dementia, and to illustrate how design - and a supportive and therapeutic physical environment - can support people living with dementia. Two Dementia Friendly Garden designs were presented at Bord Bia Bloom 2017 and 2018, having grown out of the Enterprise Ireland - funded research conducted by TrinityHaus for Newton Saunders, as part of Enterprise Ireland's Innovation Voucher scheme. The project also builds on previous research carried out by TrinityHaus with colleagues from Trinity Engage (Centre for Research in Ageing), including a collaboration with the DSIDC’s Living with Dementia Programme, resulting in research and design guidelines for Universal Design Dementia Friendly Dwellings as well as Dementia Friendly Hospital Designs.

Dementia can bring difficulties with short-term memory, comprehension, orientation, spatial awareness, visual perception and mobility. These difficulties were accommodated in the Bloom Dementia Friendly Garden, where layout, colour, planting and customised garden furniture create an attractive, safe and therapeutic outdoor space.

Both gardens were designed to tap into a person's retained skills, abilities, interests, and memories. Plants from the person's youth, such as daisies, lupins, lavender, or camomile trigger memories and facilitate reminiscence. Scented flowers, flowing water and birdsong stimulate the senses. Zoning and colours provide visual cues, helping with orientation and wayfinding. The accessible raised planter, mini glasshouse and tool shed, and vertical planter give easy access to gardening activities and engagement with nature.

2017

The 2017 garden was designed with one couple in mind - the stone wall and wildflowers and grasses reminding Pauline of her childhood spent on a farm, and the water feature reminding Andrew of the stream that ran near his childhood home.

2018

The 2018 garden was called ’Moments in Time’ and focused on creating a dementia-friendly public garden, as opposed to the urban garden shown in 2017. The design included a number of zones along a walkway, evocative large format local images, raised beds filled with distinct planting to tap into the five sense and evoke memories, and a covered seating area embedded in a small grove of trees that terminated the journey throughout the garden.

Following Bloom, the garden was transferred to a park beside Seaview Avenue in Arklow where it ocntinue to provide a place of rest and reflection to this day.