Living Museums: The Importance of Botanic Gardens

This essay is a collaboration between Lauren Wardwell and Tary Arterburn, FASLA.
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A Brief history

While identification of the first botanic garden is largely contested and likely limited by a Eurocentric record of cultural influence, the botanic gardens of the past were created for many of the same reasons that we value them today: scientific research, education, aesthetics, and recreation.

Past gardens that most resemble the ones we have today were generally called psychic gardens, with medicinal plants used for research and medical training. One such garden is the Orto Botanico di Padova in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1545, representing the documented birth of botanical science as it relates to understanding relationships between nature and culture. Today, UNESCO recognizes it as a  World Heritage Site.

In 1590, the Hortus Botanicus of Leiden was established in the Netherlands, marking a significant shift in the evolution of botanic gardens. This garden, which housed exotic plants gathered from various colonial expeditions, popularized the concept of 'collecting' plants from around the globe. Its influence inspired the establishment of many botanic gardens that still exist today, such as the Kew Gardens in London and Real Jardín Botánico in Spain.

The gardens of the 19th and 20th centuries began to respond to the concept of "pleasure grounds" or spaces existing for beauty rather than scientific pursuits as part of a larger construct with the idea of romanticism and an increased emphasis on individualism and health. These gardens focused on the visitor experience, emphasizing aesthetics, education, and interpretation. As governments reduced funding for gardens in the latter half of the 20th century, the need to be self-supporting led to an increased focus on revenue and, thus, the need for events and programming.

Within this context, the botanic garden of the 21st century is at a pivotal point, with various new and old influences shaping its future. Studio Outside has worked alongside many leaders at different institutions over the past several decades in crafting a curated approach to frame gardens for lasting success. Tary Arterburn, a founding partner of Studio Outside, leads the design efforts in our office around these uniquely positioned landscapes.  

Today, gardens serve as public institutions where people go for various reasons: to spend time with family, learn about plants, find moments of respite, and generally engage with nature. Serving as the background and sometimes as the focus of these experiences is a highly cultivated form of nature that, whether naturalized or formal, brings people in direct connection with a beautiful and vast array of botanical forms that they would not likely find in their daily lives. 

As the purpose and motivations behind visiting botanic gardens have evolved, so too have the missions of these gardens. In the last ten years, many gardens have shifted away from plant collections and towards regional authenticity. While every historic garden might have a rose garden, regardless of where it is, today, these botanical spaces are increasingly becoming hubs for ecological understanding, environmental stewardship, and education. The '19th-century' idea of collecting specimens from around the world has been replaced by more relevant and pressing topics, such as our relationship with nature and beauty.

the importance of design

Concerning botanic garden design, a site's ecological and social parameters become the primary consideration.

Red Butte Garden at the University of Utah, for example, was initially created to conduct plant research, focusing mainly on the native Utah scrub oak. As the collection grew, the site was formally established as the State Arboretum and later expanded to adopt 100 acres of land along Red Butte Canyon. At this point, the garden mission grew beyond horticulture, incorporating conservation and environmental education into its programming. Today, the garden's mission is "to connect people with plants and the beauty of living landscapes." These values are evident in the Water Conservation Garden and the 2024 Master Plan, emphasizing responsible land stewardship while highlighting the regional ecology of the Wasatch foothills throughout the designs.

Inventory and Analysis of Red Butte Gardens helped to inform a design that is deeply reflective of Salt Lake City ecological systems.

As Utah is the second driest state in the US, Red Butte’s Water Conservation Garden is all about responsible water use, educating guests on hydrozoning in planting design.

In East Texas, the Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center Master Plan began in 2001 as a restoration project to revive a garden from the 1950s. While the legacy garden served as an “oasis” in Orange, Texas, with azalea and camellia gardens, this new master planning process aimed to establish a model for environmental responsibility in Texas. Existing phenomena on the site, such as a bird sanctuary within a cypress grove and an undeveloped 200-acre cypress and tupelo wetland, informed the design. With a desired program focused on environmental education, the site has transformed into a Nature Center where visitors immerse themselves in wetland ecosystems and reflect on the relationships between nature and art. 

By 1950, thousands of visitors had traveled to Orange, Texas to experience Shangri La’s wonders during the few weeks the azaleas bloomed each spring.

Shangri La artfully blends new and old influences

A bird blind on Ruby Lake is a quiet spot in the garden

A migratory and nesting ground for thousands of birds, including several species of herons

Louvered panels make viewing easy for children and adults. Openings at different levels accommodate visitors of all heights

"Everywhere you turn is something special: the vernacular and reuse of materials; the graceful, curving paths; and the way the amenities are well connected. This has educational elements to teach us about water and the elements of beauty, art, and color.”
—2012 Professional Awards Jury

Elevated boardwalks extend through wetlands vegetated with native aquatics

Outdoor classrooms are nestled into this wetland fringe providing a space for direct interface with nature and nature-science education.

The Shangri La mission is to “ignite curiosity, instill a sense of wonder, nurture creativity, spark excitement, encourage exploration, inspire respect, expand knowledge, and model stewardship.”

The Children’s Garden features hands-on exhibits in plant propagation and botany while encouraging hands-on interactive opportunities to water the Vegetable Garden.

Gardens today need to preserve and celebrate a local ecology and directly engage a community so that relationships form between an environment and the people living in it. When the design team has a lot of interactive experiences with staff and visitors, the design follows the intuition of the stakeholders, who have the local expertise and a deeply rooted connection to the land. Thus, the plan becomes a product of the community.

Through discovery workshops and community engagements, the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Master Plan harnessed intense levels of programming discussion and review of various scenarios with the stakeholder team and staff, ultimately helping Studio Outside to draw the plan. Through this iterative process of designing WITH the community, unexpected designs take shape that are thoughtful, realistic, and successful in the long term.

The Fort Worth Botanic Garden engagement process allowed community members from all over the City of Fort Worth to participate in the design process and unexpected discoveries were made.

Simultaneously, a place of quiet refuge and dramatic experiences, often balancing intense cultivation with respectful conservation, holding space for education and beauty –botanic gardens play an exclusive role in today’s cultural landscape that must be preserved and celebrated.

Trauma-Responsive Landscape with Amy Wagenfeld

Amy Wagenfeld holds a Specialty Certification in Environmental Modifications (SCEM) from the American Occupational Therapy Association and a Healthcare Garden Design certification.

In light of the Center for Transforming Lives receiving a 2024 Texas ASLA Merit Award, outsider Declan Devine interviewed Amy Wagenfeld to discuss “Trauma-Responsive Design in Collaboration with Nature.” Wagenfeld is a therapeutic and developmental design consultant with over two decades of experience designing inclusive and accessible spaces that promote health and well-being.

Formed in 1907 to support local low-income women, the Center for Transforming Lives has over a century of experience fostering regeneration. Their new campus, created through the adaptive reuse of a vacant 1950s Montgomery Ward department store on a 14-acre site, is designed around healing landscapes. By removing one-fifth of the building's roof, they have created a secure open-air courtyard that houses a meditation garden and fills the interior with natural light. The surrounding trauma-responsive landscapes and outdoor play spaces offer various features to support each child's unique healing journey.

Coming from a background in occupational therapy, what sparked your interest in the work of trauma-responsive landscapes?

AW: Occupational therapists have been leaders in providing trauma-responsive care for many years. This type of care extends from childhood through end of life. A common thread for all types of impactful therapy services is the environments in which they are provided. Being an unabashed believer in the health benefits of nature and an occupational therapist, I recognized early on in my work the importance of designing nature-rich environments as spaces for healing. These spaces can be formally designed as therapeutic environments for addressing trauma or other specific purposes like physical rehabilitation or inclusive play. They can also be designed to offer more general benefits to all users of the spaces. Lacking a background in occupational therapy, as a practitioner and educator, I don’t think that I would truly understand what these spaces need for users to have opportunities to heal and for therapists to do their best work.

Adaptive reuse of the building included removing the roof to create a secure open-air courtyard on axis with the Survivor Tree and wrapping the building with trauma responsive landscapes.

What does trauma-responsive design mean to you?

AW: To me, trauma-responsive design acknowledges that environments (inside and outside) must be created to support people who have or are experiencing trauma of any kind. They should never exacerbate the trauma. Instead, they are intentionally designed spaces where no matter how the trauma is being manifested, physically, sensorially, or emotionally, users’ needs can be met. By its very nature, trauma-responsive design is complex, as trauma and people’s responses to trauma vary widely.

I firmly believe and have first-hand experience in my work that the most impactful trauma-responsive spaces are those that were designed through a highly engaged and collaborative interdisciplinary process. Onboarding occupational therapy in the very early stages of the project, be it helping to write proposals (we have the language!) or certainly at the beginning of SD makes the most sense- we can all be on the same page from the outset with shared goals and intentions. 

The design team collaborated with an occupational therapist on a trauma responsive approach. Play programming also references emotional intelligence framework for children established by Yale research psychologist Marc Brackett.

How can designed landscapes and natural environments aid in the process of healing?

AW: The good news is that extensive and ongoing research finds that designed and natural (environmental) connections with nature have the capacity to aid in the physical and emotional healing process. And they can support learning and thinking throughout life. While every project needs and deserves its own design considerations, providing a range of experiences for people to ‘chart their own healing journey’ in a space is foundational. I guess it boils down to providing opportunities for choice and agency, and yes, affordances!

We talk a lot about providing ample affordances in trauma-responsive landscapes. Can you elaborate on the importance of providing affordances for those who have gone through traumatic experiences?

AW: I agree that providing opportunities for everyone to experience a range of affordances or action experiences in the outdoor environment is important. In my mind, the keyword is ‘range.’ People who are experiencing trauma can and do respond to the outdoor environment in different ways (same for indoor environments). Some may embrace and seek out a wide range of affordances and others may select a narrower range. The astute trauma-responsive design team recognizes this and designs to provide different kinds and levels of affordances and transitional spaces in between to allow users of the space a safe place to reset and decide what, if any, affordance they choose to engage with next.

Active exploration includes explorer’s hill and sensory walk. As suggested by project’s occupational therapist, places of respite are located near areas of high activity to provide retreat as needed.

Within the calmer zone of the Farm, children choose from affordances of art, low volume music, building blocks, and sensory garden planting to nurture a connection to the natural world.

Do you approach trauma-responsive design differently for children vs. adults?

AW: Yes and no. Understanding that children and adults can and do experience trauma acknowledges that it happens throughout life. Childhood trauma is often referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). The impact of ACEs in adulthood can negatively impact physical health and challenges with learning and relationship building. This is a long-winded way of saying that trauma is not isolated to one period of life. A trauma-responsive (or any kind of therapeutic) design process should reflect where a person or user group is in their developmental trajectory, such as an outdoor environment for children, teens, adults, or older adults, or a multi-age space. A child’s developmental skills and needs differ from an adult’s needs, and design should consider that. I like to think developmentally in my trauma-responsive design process.

That said, it is important to understand human development for any type of design project, but even more so a therapeutic one. For example, a trauma-responsive space for children would most likely have a carefully balanced play focus to promote emotional regulation. But to be honest, we need to play at all stages of life, and in some capacity, it has its place in all trauma-responsive design! But play for a child is different than for an adult, so playful elements in a trauma-responsive landscape at, say, an outpatient veteran’s clinic would look different than in a children’s landscape.   

Parents in a relaxed mindset provide more stability. The meditation courtyard brims with seating nooks to retreat between lush plantings and an outdoor plaza sized for yoga or small groups.

What are some design elements or strategies you think could be utilized to integrate moments for healing into the landscape, even when it might not be the project’s focus?

AW: First off, a universal design focus needs to be front and center for impactful therapeutic design. Dovetailing onto universal design, providing choice in the landscape is very important. For example, in times of unrest and trauma, people may feel like they have little agency in their lives. Landscapes that provide equitable options to be more active or passive are invaluable to users. Let me use water as an example because it is often a highly requested element. Is there an option to include water to look at and listen to (passive), to touch or play in (active)?

 Are there any other exciting projects you’ve been working on lately that you’d like to share?

 AW: Thanks for asking! Here are a few of the projects I am working on. I am finishing up a project, the Joy Evans Therapeutic Recreation Center, with the DLR Group Washington, DC office. I have used my therapeutic design skills on this project to assist with the process from proposal writing, interviewing, community engagement, public art selection, and all stages of the design process through CD. My contributions to the Center have spanned landscape, architecture, and interior design. I am also working with the DLR Group Minneapolis office on a women’s prison project, and several inclusive playground projects with O’Dell Engineering, a Westwood Company. I love what I do as a therapeutic designer and also as faculty in the Department of Landscape Architecture, where I co-teach design studio courses and solo teach therapeutic-focused seminars such as Human Development for Designers and Sensory Responsive Design!