Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces

Today’s university learning environments must encompass more than technology upgrades and classroom additions - the entire campus must be perceived as a holistic learning space that provides a holistic learning experience. The potential of campus nature in replenishing student cognitive functioning is underutilized. Recognizing campuses as vital learning landscapes harnesses their potential as attentional resources. A whole-systems approach to campus design requires communication and collaboration among academic, administrative and facilities planning stakeholders. This approach goes beyond the aesthetic value of campus open spaces for student recruitment to advertising its educational value that emphasizes something deeper than what meets the eye

Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces

American higher education institutions face unique twenty-first century changes and challenges in providing good, holistic learning spaces for the diverse and evolving needs of today’s college student. Continued enrollment growth, societal and technological changes, financial challenges, and a need for increased universal and open access create ever more diverse, changing and complex US university systems. In 2009, 20.4 million students were enrolled in 2- or 4-year colleges and universities. By 2019, enrollments are expected to rise 9% for students under age 25, and rise 23% for students over the age of 25 (Snyder & Dillow, 2011). Questions of where, when, how, and with whom today’s college students learn, confront the traditional notions of how university spaces are designed and used for effectiveness (Hashimshony & Haina, 2006). Therefore, we propose that the natural landscape of a university campus is an attentional learning resource for its students

Historical influences on the current provision of multiple ecosystem services: is there a legacy of past landcover?

Ecosystem service provision varies temporally in response to natural and human-induced factors, yet research in this field is dominated by analyses that ignore the time-lags and feedbacks that occur within socio-ecological systems. The implications of this have been unstudied, but are central to understanding how service delivery will alter due to future land-use/cover change. Urban areas are expanding faster than any other land-use, making cities ideal study systems for examining such legacy effects. We assess the extent to which present-day provision of a suite of eight ecosystem services, quantified using field-gathered data, is explained by current and historical (stretching back 150 years) landcover. Five services (above-ground carbon density, recreational use, bird species richness, bird density, and a metric of recreation experience quality (continuity with the past) were more strongly determined by past landcover. Time-lags ranged from 20 (bird species richness and density) to over 100 years (above-ground carbon density). Historical landcover, therefore, can have a strong influence on current service provision. By ignoring such time-lags, we risk drawing incorrect conclusions regarding how the distribution and quality of some ecosystem services may alter in response to land-use/cover change. Although such a finding adds to the complexity of predicting future scenarios, ecologists may find that they can link the biodiversity conservation agenda to the preservation of cultural heritage, and that certain courses of action provide win-win outcomes across multiple environmental and cultural goods

What Is the Evidence to Support the Use of Therapeutic Gardens for the Elderly?

Horticulture therapy employs plants and gardening activities in therapeutic and rehabilitation activities and could be utilized to improve the quality of life of the worldwide aging population, possibly reducing costs for long-term, assisted living and dementia unit residents. Preliminary studies have reported the benefits of horticultural therapy and garden settings in reduction of pain, improvement in attention, lessening of stress, modulation of agitation, lowering of as needed medications, antipsychotics and reduction of falls. This is especially relevant for both the United States and the Republic of Korea since aging is occurring at an unprecedented rate, with Korea experiencing some of the world's greatest increases in elderly populations. In support of the role of nature as a therapeutic modality in geriatrics, most of the existing studies of garden settings have utilized views of nature or indoor plants with sparse studies employing therapeutic gardens and rehabilitation greenhouses. With few controlled clinical trials demonstrating the positive or negative effects of the use of garden settings for the rehabilitation of the aging populations, a more vigorous quantitative analysis of the benefits is long overdue. This literature review presents the data supporting future studies of the effects of natural settings for the long term care and rehabilitation of the elderly having the medical and mental health problems frequently occurring with aging

Accommodating culturally meaningful activities in outdoor settings for older adults

A growing multicultural aging population necessitates an examination of the cultural responsiveness of American healthcare environments in enabling successful aging experiences. Environment-behavior studies establish positive effects of natural environments on the well-being of older adults. This study explored cultural differences in nature-related activities among Hispanic and Anglo-American elderly using six photographs of nature settings to elicit nature-related preferences and experiences. Findings indicate that Hispanic elderly find ‘furnished’ natural settings more compatible with their preferred activities such as group-oriented socializing while Anglo-American elderly prefer ‘authentic’ natural settings for preferred activities such as quiet reflection. Culture specific programming and design implications are discussed

An Exploration of How Biophilic Attributes on Campuses Might Support Student Connectedness to Nature, Others, and Self

University Campuses remain important settings for nurturing and supporting student health and quality of life (QoL). Research shows the health benefits of nature experiences may be facilitated by campus spaces and activities that afford connectedness. Connectedness to nature, others, and self may allow students to cope with mental fatigue, stress, and a constant need for restoration. Despite recent encouraging trends, we still lack an integrative conceptual framework to describe the mechanisms involved in achieving connectedness for making recommendations for campus design. In this conceptual review, we examine students’ connectedness in campus settings in relation to biophilic elements and attributes. We aim to understand how both direct and indirect pursuits in nature and also place-based experiences on campus foster connectedness and consequently impact students’ health and QoL. Our analysis shows that connectedness seen through the lens of Kellert’s biophilic design principles and aided by Alexander’s pattern language provides a relational and long-term perspective on recommending strategies for connecting students to nature, to others, and to themselves in campus settings

Evaluating three validation-methods for an architectural intervention for seniors with dementia in the empathic design framework : a case study

Designing for seniors with dementia is a difficult task, because they are more dependent on the design of the building in order to perform activities of daily life (ADL). The Empathic Design Framework with the four phases (explore, translate, elaborate, and validate) makes it possible to design a suitable building for this target group. Using this framework, developed and translated design principles need to be implemented and tested in order to validate an architectural intervention which stimulates ADL. In the case study presented in this paper, three methods were used to validate the architectural intervention of door decals: performance-based orientation task (M1), fly-on-the-wall observation (M2), and questionnaire-based interview (M3). This paper presents the evaluation of these three methods in order to discover which method or methods suit best the purpose of validating an architectural intervention. In this study, multiple variables were tested; however, it was not possible to test each variable with every method. Based on this case study, we recommend to choose the application of the methods according to the to be tested variables and the type of behavior that needs to be measured: M1 and M2 are more suitable for the measurement of real behavior change of the target group; while M3 suits well if opinions and the level of acceptance need to be measured