Walk with Amy Wagenfeld & Daniel Winterbottom: What Makes a Space Healing?

Oct 6

Episode Summary: The spaces we create shape how we experience the world—and our access to nature within those spaces isn't equally shared.

In this conversation with occupational therapist and therapeutic design consultant Amy Wagenfeld and landscape architect Daniel Winterbottom, we explore what makes a space therapeutic, why choice and inclusion matter, and what their work in healthcare, dementia care, veterans' facilities, and prisons can teach us about designing environments that support human wellbeing.

Episode Description

What happens when we begin to think about access to nature not simply as something that's nice to have, but as part of creating environments that support human wellbeing?

In this conversation, I sit down with Amy Wagenfeld and Daniel Winterbottom, co-authors of Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces, to explore what decades of work at the intersection of nature, health, and design have taught them about the spaces we create.

Amy brings the perspective of occupational therapy and therapeutic design, while Daniel is a landscape architect whose work includes trauma-informed design. Together, we explore what actually makes a garden therapeutic—and why the answer depends so much on the people who will use it.

Our conversation takes us from hospitals and dementia care to spaces designed for veterans experiencing PTSD and correctional environments, where access to nature can support rehabilitation, connection, and community.

We also explore the importance of choice and inclusion: how seemingly small design decisions can affect whether someone feels welcomed into a space, how sensory experiences can support or overwhelm us, and what happens when illness, disability, or incarceration limits our ability to make choices about our surroundings.

Throughout the conversation, we return to a larger question: What might our homes, neighborhoods, healthcare settings, and other shared spaces look like if we more intentionally considered our need for nature—and made that connection accessible to more people?

Key Themes

What makes a space therapeutic — Green space itself can support wellbeing, but Amy and Daniel explain why truly therapeutic environments also respond to the physical, emotional, sensory, cultural, and psychological needs of the people using them.
Choice, agency, and dignity — In hospitals, care facilities, prisons, and other institutional environments, people often lose control over everyday decisions. The conversation explores why even small opportunities for choice can matter.
Designing for inclusion — From seating that naturally accommodates a wheelchair to gardens that offer different levels of sensory stimulation, thoughtful design can determine who feels welcomed into a space and who does not.
Nature in places of trauma — Daniel and Amy share examples from veterans' healthcare and correctional settings that illustrate how access to nature can support safety, connection, rehabilitation, and opportunities for healing.
From private spaces to community — We move beyond therapeutic gardens to consider homes, neighborhoods, front yards, community gardens, and shared green spaces—and the role they can play in connecting us not only with nature, but with one another.

Key Takeaways

There isn't one universal formula for a therapeutic garden. Designing for wellbeing begins with understanding the people who will actually use the space.
Access to nature is also an issue of choice and inclusion. Our ability to experience the natural world is shaped in part by the environments available to us and the decisions others make about those environments.
Small design choices can have significant human consequences, influencing whether someone experiences a space as welcoming, safe, usable, or excluding.
Nature can play a meaningful role even in highly institutional environments, including hospitals and prisons, where autonomy and access to the natural world may be limited.
Creating space for nature doesn't always require a grand garden or park. Meaningful connection can begin with something as simple as a plant, a view through a window, or a place to sit.

“Everybody has a right to experience nature and to experience nature in ways that are most impactful for them.”
— Amy Wagenfeld

Connect with Amy Wagenfeld

Website: amywagenfelddesign.com

Connect with Daniel Winterbottom

University of Washington: Department of Landscape Architecture — Daniel Winterbottom

Resources Mentioned

Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces — Second Edition

Iowa Correctional Institution for Women

AMEND at UCSF

Reflection Prompt

Think about a place where you spend a significant amount of time. What does its design make easier for you—and what might it make more difficult? Where, if anywhere, does nature fit into that experience?

Prefer to read? The full transcript is below.

Susan Bailey:
All right. Well, I am excited for this conversation today with Amy and Daniel. My first time in a while hosting two humans at the same time to talk about the connection between nature and wellbeing.
And so this connection happened because of the Nature and Health Alliance. I announced this podcast project through the Nature and Health Alliance, and you all reached out to me with interest in having a conversation, and here we are.
And I’m going to start with you, Amy, because you were the one who led the charge for the connection. For listeners, can you tell the audience a little bit about what you do?
Amy Wagenfeld:
Sure, I’m happy to. And Susan, again, thank you so much for inviting Daniel and myself to participate in the podcast today. It’s really going to be great. We’re super excited.
So I’m Amy Wagenfeld, and I wear several different hats. I am faculty in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, and I have a therapeutic design consulting organization called, very unimaginatively, Amy Wagenfeld Design, in which I work with landscape architects and architects and other design professionals on creating therapeutic environments, be they outside or inside.
And what’s most interesting is my work is grounded in my background as an occupational therapist.
Susan Bailey:
This is fun. We are going to have fun. All right, Daniel. How about you?
Daniel Winterbottom:
Yes, thank you again, Susan, for having us. It’s a topic dear to both of our hearts.
I’m a professor at the University of Washington, and this is my 30th year as a professor there. I have been doing research and teaching and working within facilities, mainly around trauma-informed design. So I work both internationally and domestically.
My most recent focus has been in carceral settings, so in prisons. In fact, yesterday I was at a maximum-security prison in Oregon looking at an amazing project. So that’s what I focus on.
I’m also a practicing landscape architect, so I do designs also in the same realm, often working in senior facilities, care facilities, that sort of thing. So it’s a growing phenomenon.
Amy and I wrote a book 15 years ago, and the book has just been reissued as a second edition with updates pertaining to our growing interests in varying topics. That’s also available if anybody’s interested. After the podcast, it will dig a little deeper into the topics that I think we’ll be talking about today.
Susan Bailey:
I love it. Yeah, we will add the link to that in the show notes and in the description for this podcast.
And boy, I have so many questions already. I’m already jumping, and I don’t usually have a script, but I just want to go because my heart sank a little bit when you brought in prisons, because I’ve recently just been thinking about that conceptually.
For the last—this summer—I’ve been going to see a care provider once a week. And on the way there, I pass a senior living facility. And I noticed a couple weeks ago that they’re gated in, so these individuals can, you know, not wander off, presumably, right? There may be some folks in memory care that live there.
But their activity, or their way to be outdoors, is sitting on folding chairs on a cement driveway behind the gate that sort of opens up to the facility. And it feels like a prison to me.
And I get it. I get, on one hand, there is a risk for these individuals to walk away and be in harm’s way if they wander. But boy, you bringing that up right away, I’m like, wow, we’ve got lots of possibilities to talk about.
So before we go deep, let’s play a little bit. I’d love to hear from both of you: Can you remember the day or the time or the experience you had when all of a sudden you said, “Wow, nature and connection in nature—it matters so much more than we realize”?
Whatever that looked like for you, I’m curious from both of you to hear when that revelation might have occurred. Daniel, do you want to take that one first?
Daniel Winterbottom:
Yeah, I think we both have stories around that. I guess mine was twofold.
My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when I was 31, and we spent the next nine months saying goodbye to each other. And at one point I came into her room, and it was a reasonably old hospital, 1950s, and this is back in ’91.
So the hospital revolution, if you want to call that, hadn’t occurred yet. So it was a generic 1950s, pea green, gray, fluorescent lights, et cetera—a very inhospitable setting to say goodbye.
And she would stare out the window at a singular pine tree. And she would talk about it. My mother’s from Brooklyn, New York. Now, she did like nature, but she wasn’t born in nature. And this passion, arguably at the end of her life, for this tree puzzled me a little bit.
And I realized it was a source of escape for her. It was a living thing that she could retreat to and escape to from the room, from the psychology of cancer, from the pain of facing the end of her life.
And we also spent a lot of time in gardens and driving in the country when she wasn’t hospitalized. At that time, I didn’t study landscape architecture, so I didn’t really know what it was.
The second thing is I sort of have lived experience. My childhood went down some lanes that probably shouldn’t have gone, and in my recovery I spent a lot of time in nature, also influenced by my father. And I realized there was an ability to focus on things that mattered. There was a way to block out the noise of everything else, that it calmed you, it comforted you, and it supported you in that journey.
And it was only later, when I got into landscape architecture, that I actually first went to Guatemala and worked with families in the garbage dumps and, for the first time, really saw what the lack of nature was, because there were no trees in these neighborhoods. It had all been cut down for firewood.
And we built them a very modest garden in an enclosed school area, and to see the kids’ delight, to see the mothers’ delight just to be there—it’s profound.
Now we have science to back that. At that point in time, we actually didn’t.
And that sort of started my trajectory, because whenever you enter a profession, it’s like, does it have meaning? Is it just a career, or does it have meaning?
And all of a sudden I realized the power of what I could do and was able to do, and I’m blessed to have been given the opportunity to do it.
Susan Bailey:
That’s a fun path. Amy, how about your path?
Amy Wagenfeld:
Well, at some point I’m going to link my path with Daniel, but I’m going to start sort of way back in the day when I was a little girl.
And yet another one of many points of connection between Daniel and me is that my parents are from Brooklyn. And when I was five years old, we left New York to move to Kalamazoo, Michigan, for my father’s first job teaching at Western Michigan University. Go Broncos.
And at the time, Kalamazoo was very, very rural. Well, it certainly wasn’t the hustle and bustle of New York City.
We were living in our first house, and our first house included a backyard with space for a garden. And so my parents were very enthusiastic. Great, now we’re going to have a garden and we’re going to live a whole different life.
Well, they lost interest almost immediately, but little five-year-old Amy really, really loved the garden.
I have three younger siblings. Our household was busy all the time, and going out to the garden—although I didn’t know it at the time, but I realize now—it was really a time for me to relax, to experience some quiet, and to watch plants grow.
And so I believe that was my first introduction to nature and to nature and health.
And I’ve always loved nature. I’ve always loved being outside. I’ve always loved gardening. Whenever I’ve lived in an environment that enabled me to have a garden, be it plants in pots or in-ground gardens, I always have, and I love it.
And so if we fast-forward a long time, it was almost 25 years ago, which is kind of shocking to think about. At that time, my husband and our then-13-year-old son and I were living in suburban Boston.
And it was a beautiful spring day. And it was at one point in my life when I thought, my gosh, I cannot have any more going on than I do right now—which, of course, is hardly the case.
But anyway, at that time I was writing my dissertation. I was finishing up my first textbook. I was teaching three-quarters time at that point in a psychology department. I had a small occupational therapy practice, and I was planning our son’s bar mitzvah.
And I don’t know what happened, but my son David and I were both in the study working, and I just started yelling and screaming, and I exploded—which is pretty unusual for me, but I did.
And David stopped typing, and he just looked over at his incredibly out-of-control mother and he said, “Hey, Mom, why don’t you go outside in your garden for a little while?”
Out of the mouth of a 13-year-old.
So I stopped ranting and I said, “Huh. Okay.”
So I went outside, and it was a beautiful, beautiful spring day. And for 20 minutes I weeded, I poked around, I looked for treasures in the garden, I gazed at the beautiful sky, and I felt the light breeze on my shoulders and the sun kissing my face.
And I breathed and I breathed.
And I realized, I feel fine. I’m reset.
And I went back inside and I was quiet. I was composed. And I started working again, and all was well.
But I could have left it at that, but I didn’t, because that’s just the nature of who I am. What just happened to me? This was a really transformative moment.
And so I began to really research, you know, is there some connection between nature and health?
And this was before there was a whole lot of evidence to support that relationship. But I began to learn about nature and health theories, and then I began to learn about this concept of therapeutic gardens, which I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait. That’s a point of connection between occupational therapy and landscape architecture, which, of course, is something I’ve always been very, very interested in.
And so I thought, well, this is great. This is a potential turning point in my life.
And so I began to think about, well, who’s doing the design work that’s focused on therapeutic design? And, of course, Daniel is one of the pioneers of therapeutic garden design.
And so I reached out to him and, in a probably somewhat audacious way, I said, “Hey, you’re the garbage dump guy,” because I’d read his article about the work he had done in Guatemala.
He said, “Well, I think I’m more than that.”
But anyway, I just said, “Hey, Daniel, if there’s ever an opportunity to connect, to be in your orbit, I would just be honored to do so.”
And you so graciously invited me to come out to Seattle. At the time, that was not a teaching semester for me, so I was able to come out to Seattle and to kind of begin our journey together, I’d like to think.
So we have been, as Daniel mentioned, writing together. The second edition of Therapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces came out in February. We’ve been co-teaching together, presenting together, and really learning together.
So that’s my journey. And it continues.
Susan Bailey:
Very cool. And it continues.
What fun stories you both have. I love—it’s one of the best things—the what gets things, what gets the inspiration points, I should say. And so thank you for sharing those.
I’m curious, and maybe Daniel, you can run with this one first: What makes a garden therapeutic?
Is it easy to answer this question, or is it complicated?
Daniel Winterbottom:
It’s very easy because all gardens are therapeutic, and it’s the green. So it’s the green factor, and the more you have, the better it can be.
Olmsted, for instance, did the Emerald Necklace in Boston. You don’t read a lot about it, but if you do read his writings—and he wrote to Congress, actually, about the Mariposa holding in San Francisco, but he was also working on the Boston project at the time—I mean, he goes off the charts to say without nature interaction, we’ll suffer from insanity, depression. The words are just unbelievable.
We don’t credit him with that sort of insight.
He was also very conscious about social factors and the discrepancy and equity in urban living. Of course, at that time you had typhoid, you had cholera, you had all sorts of public health problems, and he did a whole stormwater system in the Fens.
So he was really looking at critical public health issues, but also very much mental health and wellbeing. And he felt that green needed to be spread throughout the city.
So while he did do a main park in the center of Boston, he wove it along the Fenways out to Franklin Park, and the idea was to bring nature to each community and give access to it.
The fact of the matter is, we need nature to balance our lives, and it is the green.
Now, there are other attributes, of course. Wildlife is very highly rated. Water is very highly rated. People love being near ponds, near the coast, et cetera. So there are various factors that seem to loom high in people’s wellbeing.
More specifically, not every garden works for everybody. Different populations have very specific needs, and the idea is to design it to respond to their needs.
They could be physical needs. They could be emotional needs. They could be psychological needs. They can even be spiritual needs.
Some of the earliest gardens are in the Middle Ages, and they’re monastery gardens. And those were healing gardens, not only for the monks, but those were actually the first form of hospital before hospital systems were developed.
So they actually grew tinctures, they had medicines, they had food, they gave healthcare to indigent and infirm wanderers who were walking long distances, et cetera.
So it is the green factor that lowers our stress, lowers our heart rate, lowers our sweat glands. All of this is documented. Cortisol is the big indicator for stress. So when you bring somebody into a green space, you can document the lowering of the cortisol just by green.
So if you add water, if you add aromas, if you add wildlife, you’re upping the ante for some people.
Now, there are also cultural variations. So you can’t assume one shoe fits all, as I said.
You mentioned at the beginning of this podcast dementia. That’s a very specific population that has very specific needs, not only safety, but also recognition of memory.
So often in those, we’ll try to look at the demographic and bring things that would have been familiar to them back in childhood, because childhood actually becomes more present than the present. This is true of aging, but it’s also very much true with dementia.
You cannot reverse dementia, but you try to plateau it through memory use.
So we put lots of nature in, but we also put actual activities so that people are using the brain, using the physical attributes that they have.
So it’s a big subject. I mean, you have different subjects of psychiatric gardens, hospice gardens, et cetera, et cetera. And each of them would have certain attributes that we probably don’t have the time to go through.
Some of that is discussed in the book. And it’s growing because we’re learning more about different illnesses.
For instance, let me just give you an example. We would think aromas would be fantastic for all populations.
For people with cancer, chemotherapy changes taste and smell. So an Asian lily that may have been the greatest sensation that one had prior to cancer may actually be revolting to somebody undergoing chemotherapy.
So our philosophy is to give variety and opportunities because you don’t know exactly what each individual is going to need within that demographic.
So it’s a long answer to say gardens by nature are healing, but you also have to respond to the user needs to make them accessible and usable.
And just to finalize it, right now there’s more look, at least among designers, at curriculum-based gardens.
So you look at the population, look at the needs. For instance, physical therapy can take place in the garden. So you’re gaining the attributes of green nature while you’re working on physical rehabilitation.
And this is just the beginning. We’re just at the baby stages of what this could be in healthcare, institutionalized healthcare, and alternative healthcare as well.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. Jay Maddox said on an earlier episode that physical activity outdoors—physical activity outdoors together—is like a peanut butter cup. It goes better together.
So when you say that, that’s what comes up for me.
I’m curious, one question just, and then I want to ask Amy a question. Is Olmsted the same guy who did Central Park?
Daniel Winterbottom:
He is. He did Prospect Park, he did Central Park, he did the Boston Commons, and then the sons took over. He did a lot of work in Buffalo. He did work in Seattle. They matched their plan in Seattle, actually.
And one thing I’d also like to add is there’s a lot of very interesting research looking at the state of awe and what that means to people. And very often nature provides that sense of awe.
I think one of the greatest things that has happened in the United States is the development of the national parks. And that is a place that people go for awe and how that has a significance in their spiritual being.
So nature very much has a role in that as well.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. That’s exciting.
In the Detroit area, we have Belle Isle, which is an island park that was also designed by him, which is just a gem.
Daniel Winterbottom:
Exactly.
And they don’t all have to be huge projects. Community gardens do this, right? Terrace gardens do it.
So it’s not as if it has to be a huge-scale, grandiose project. Those are wonderful for a good population, but it’s at all levels that it can be inserted in one’s interaction in their daily life.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. It can be a pot and it can be a park.
Amy, I’m curious, from your perspective, you met and you started working, and then how did occupational therapy—maybe for those who don’t fully understand what occupational therapy is—can you help us understand how your work is complemented by this nature and how you tie that together from your point of view?
Amy Wagenfeld:
Sure.
So occupational therapy is an allied health profession. We were sort of formally inducted, if you will, in 1917. So we’ve been around quite a while.
And the basic intention of occupational therapy is how to use everyday activities. And you can think of these everyday activities as being occupations.
So how can occupations be implemented into a client or a patient’s therapeutic interventions in ways that are meaningful to them?
The whole basic premise is: How can you use occupations that are meaningful to someone to help them to regain whatever goals or losses have been experienced?
And important to understand that one of the really, really impactful practice models of our profession is called the PEOP, which is the Person-Environment-Occupation-Performance model.
And the whole idea of this model is that not only do we have to be able to have an effective relationship between the person and the environment—the environment can be anything; it can be the home, it can be outdoors, it can be school—but in order to engage in occupations and to be able to perform these occupations, there has to be this really, really important synergy.
Certainly the design profession is very committed to the person and environment relationship. Occupational therapy will take it a little further and say, well, not only is the person and environment relationship important, but how can you do these activities that are important and meaningful to you in these environments?
And if we use a garden, or even more distilled down, a therapeutic garden as an example, how can, for example, an adult with dementia use an outdoor space in a way that’s meaningful to them and that gives them the opportunity to do what’s important?
Does it bring them joy? Does it enable them to move, if that’s important? Does it enable them to touch something?
And sort of the concept of blending occupational therapy and landscape architecture—certainly when I began to think about, wait a minute, there’s a relationship between the two because to be able to do what you want and need to do in an outdoor environment is so important—it was a previously sort of unknown concept, if you will.
So it’s been very, very exciting to see this bridge that’s being built between our two professions.
Susan Bailey:
So the first edition of Therapeutic Gardens came out more than a decade ago. It’s getting more and more exciting right now.
Was there something in particular that you saw that sort of opened this up to being of more and more interest? Was it the pandemic?
I heard “trauma-informed” used earlier from Daniel, which I know from my work is a term that’s grown in awareness and, you know, I don’t want to say popularity, but more people are familiar with the term just in the last five years than they were previously.
What’s changed?
Amy Wagenfeld:
Well, I certainly think that the pandemic had a significant impact on people’s relationships with outdoor environments.
I think, you know, me along with probably many, many, many others found solace in being outside during those very, very frightening times. And, you know, sure, we were all to some extent experiencing trauma.
But I just think that the real point of connection between our two professions is that how can an occupational therapist work with a landscape architect to create these spaces that someone can really, really say, “Yeah, I can use this space.”
And sometimes, you know, it’s small modifications that will enable a more inclusive experience for people.
Susan Bailey:
Can you give a concrete example, you or Daniel? Maybe you and then Daniel. I’d love to hear the two that come to mind for each of you.
Amy Wagenfeld:
Sure. I’m going to give an example of seating.
If we want to have an area for people to sit and to sit together and to be in conversation with each other, think about, okay, if you have people who are ambulatory, who are walking, and those who are in wheelchairs, quite often the person who’s sitting in a wheelchair may have to position themselves to engage in a conversation in a really awkward way.
And this awkward way might unintentionally block a pathway or something like that.
But let’s say you think about a horseshoe concept or a half-circle concept. And if you have bench seating, yet an opening in the middle or somewhere along the way of the curve of the bench, that enables a wheelchair user to back right in, to be part of the conversation.
And not only is an adaptation like this applicable for somebody in a wheelchair. It’s also a great place for someone pushing a baby stroller to push the stroller in, so it’s not blocking a pathway, or for someone who really would prefer to stand and be in communication with others.
So that’s just one example of, I like to think of it as, an inclusive design feature. That’s really, really important. And it really increases the usability of a space.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. I’m going to be honest and tell you, when you first shared the example, the very first example, I just felt like my heart opened.
It was like, oh my gosh, yes, yes. Inviting others in and creating space for them intentionally.
Daniel, I’m curious, when you hear about this, what example came up for you?
Daniel Winterbottom:
Well, we’ve done quite a bit of work with veterans. And as you probably are aware, PTSD is pretty significant.
And the VA has struggled. I mean, they’ve gone through many, many treatments. I have several good friends who are Vietnam vets that struggle with PTSD, and the treatments actually have caused harm in some cases—experiential re-experiencing.
Ironically, the model is laid out because so many veterans, when they come back from war, they actually go to nature places.
So the phenomenon in Vietnam was people were moving from New Jersey to Idaho to Alaska, to places because nature is nonthreatening. I mean, there’s bear and all that, but compared to what they faced, it was humans that were the threat, and humans remain the threat.
So when we do these gardens, you have to be very sensitive about what the cause and effects are with PTSD.
A few examples would be: You don’t want a situation where somebody can go behind where somebody is sitting. They want to make sure that they’re safe and secure, and that threat behind is something that preoccupies them and makes them so uncomfortable that they won’t be around.
They also need to have an escape mechanism, so they need clear visibility as to where the exit is. They may never use it.
So this is really to deal with the hypersensitivity that they have. They think about fear all the time, live in fear all the time, and have to have some sense that they can deal with it should it happen.
They also are very upset by loud noises. They bring back combat. So any way you can muffle, insulate, diminish—water would be a very good example.
So as I said, water is usually the second or first preferred sensory experience people want in a therapeutic garden. It can also muffle sounds. It can also be a wayfinding for people who can’t see.
Many veterans also have sight loss. All these things sort of come together when you’re dealing with the population.
So I started with PTSD, but then you go to lack of sight or you go to lack of hearing because of the exposure. So you’re really dealing with the whole spectrum of what, in this case, combat will be dealing with.
And if you can do a responsive space like that, it’s a game changer.
We did one right next to the lobby at the VA here in Seattle. It’s used nonstop, not just by patients and users of the hospital, but also by staff because burnout is a huge problem in medical care.
So you’re dealing almost with the trauma of long hours, intense work, maybe thankless in some cases.
And the trick there was it was a very, very small space. So how do you make these spaces where somebody can cry?
In a hospital, you hope for good outcomes, but you have bad outcomes. So how do you provide these sanctuary spaces for somebody to grieve when they get immediate news that they’re not prepared for?
And how can you have somebody else doing meeting notes and somebody else meeting with a physician, et cetera?
And that’s the challenge of design, really, is to make sure all of them can operate and all of them are included in that.
And then multi-uses of the environment. So it may be taking notes one minute, it may be meeting with a physician another, it may be doing a meditation class. So they also have to be multi-usable at different times.
Susan Bailey:
Wow. Amy, do you want to add anything to that?
Amy Wagenfeld:
I do, and it’s a perfect segue.
I think to say, and to build onto what Daniel was sharing, that providing different opportunities for people to do what they want and need to do in the garden also really fully taps into how they respond to different sensory experiences.
And to have spaces that have, you know, perhaps a plethora of specific sensory experiences and those that are sort of sensory-low or sensory very muted, depending on somebody’s response.
And this response could be a physiological response. It could be an emotional response. And it could be, you know, in many ways rooted in past experiences and perhaps traumatic experiences for how we respond to being in different types of built environments.
Daniel Winterbottom:
There’s also an issue that happens when you enter healthcare short-term and, for sure, long-term. And that’s the diminishing control you have over your own choices and your own life.
And that can be incredibly depressing.
And that is certainly part of dementia care. People see all of their independence evaporating.
But it’s also true in medical care where you’re told when you have your meal, what you can eat, et cetera, et cetera.
So these ideas of small choices are very significant to somebody feeling they have efficacy on their own and that they haven’t completely been subsumed in their own self-power and self-choice.
Susan Bailey:
There’s so much here. I feel like we could talk for hours.
There are two things that are bubbling up for me, which folks have heard me talk about before on the podcast.
One is, you know, the space that we spend time in matters. And we can be intentional about creating space for purpose and sort of designing outdoor space for purpose. That’s what we’re talking about.
And one of the other things we talk about on this podcast is the reality that we live a three-layer existence.
We are natural creatures ourselves, but we live in a very, very built world, and then the artificial world is gaining traction, right?
But we are nature, and we are natural creatures.
And so I’m curious, when you think about this, what might we learn from your work that could be applied for the person who’s just thinking about their own home or their own home space?
Are there some lessons there that either of you could share?
I’ve been thinking about my own neighborhood I live in, and it’s like our park is sort of a good old-fashioned park, for lack of a better description. It’s just a sheet of green with an outline of trees.
And I’ve sat in there so many times thinking there’s so much more we could be doing with this space.
So I’m curious if this is inspiring either of you to have some thoughts.
Amy Wagenfeld:
Okay, I’ll jump in first.
What’s important is if you’re thinking about designing for yourself, designing for your home, be it if you have a backyard or if you have a balcony, what’s most important to think about is what resonates with you in terms of both nature, plant material, and also built elements such as water features.
If you really like water, which is a natural element, and you want to have water in your garden, well, having a water feature is, for many, as Daniel mentioned, a very soothing experience.
I think that what’s most important to think about, not only is what appeals to you, definitely, but to dive deeper and say, what about a certain specific plant is appealing to you?
Is it the color? Is it the texture? Is it the odor? Is it the way that it moves in the wind?
And to say, okay, well, this is appealing to me, and maybe I want to build upon my outdoor experiences by having plants that are similar to this.
Or perhaps somebody really is drawn to a wide diversity of elements, and then to honor that.
Or perhaps somebody really prefers a lot of consistency and sameness, and again, repetition. Then that’s important to honor.
Certainly other features that I think are somewhat—I don’t want to say essential, because that’s my opinion—but I think important features to think about in a garden are a place to sit.
And it’s a place to sit that is protected in some way. It’s protected perhaps under the canopy of a tree, or perhaps there’s some kind of built shade structure.
But this place to sit and to, you know, reflect if that’s an important thing to do, or to write or to listen.
But most important, think about what is appealing and what are the factors that make it appealing to someone.
Susan Bailey:
I’m going to jump from that, and Daniel, this ties back—I want to tie back to what we talked about at the top, which is where we were headed upon.
You mentioned prisons. I talked about senior care facilities, but I’m really curious about, just thinking about Amy, I was wondering, how do you apply that in a prison space?
And what does the research tell us?
Because I feel like there’s a thing—and maybe I’m wrong—about intentional deprivation in a prison from nature. And maybe we’re moving beyond that.
So perspective, please.
Daniel Winterbottom:
Yeah, it’s a bit of a big topic, to be honest.
So in the United States, there are two systems. There’s the Auburn system and there’s the Pennsylvania system.
And the Auburn system was developed around work. So the idea was if you worked, you would become rehabilitated. I mean, it’s kind of a strange idea.
And you worked in silence. And you worked and worked and worked.
So that was one methodology.
The Pennsylvania system was you live in solitude and you pay penance to the Lord, and your salvation will come through that.
What they found was solitary confinement actually tends to create instability, both mentally, spiritually, and psychologically, although we still have that remaining.
So the two systems came from isolation in the sense of silence, but also in the idea that you wouldn’t be connected to sensorial experiences.
And we’ve seen what happened. We’ve seen growth in insanity, in mental decline, et cetera, et cetera.
What has happened in the last 10 to 15 years is acknowledgement that there are other ways of doing it. And most of the focus is on Scandinavia.
And the system that’s used there is focused on rehabilitation. And the idea is your only punitive aspect is you’re incarcerated. But everything else is to provide you the opportunities to rehabilitate yourself if you choose.
Now, not all people may choose this.
It’s basically called restorative justice. And the idea is you acknowledge what you’ve done. And I’m not saying everybody who got a sentence did it, but I would say many did.
You acknowledge what you did, and you work on changing yourself and transforming yourself from what you were.
And the garden actually plays a role in that.
So [program name unclear] is a program in California that has a curriculum developed around this in gardening. And there’s the outer garden and the inner garden.
The outer garden is all the biology of soil, of plant science, of pruning, of care for the plants. But through that, you’re learning care for yourself.
So the inner garden is then taking what you’ve learned and applying it to you.
And it’s an amazing program. It’s the only one I know that really has a strong curriculum.
The reason I gravitated towards it is, as a landscape architect, I said, where’s the need the greatest?
And you touched right on it, right? They’re intentionally designed to be sensory deprivation.
I visited one prison in California. It’s got to be 110 degrees. There’s not a tree in the prison. There’s barely any grass in the prison. It’s all concrete and steel, which absorbs heat.
We know that hot temperatures increase violence and aggression. You’re dealing with a population, prison politics, on and on and on, right?
So what they did in Norway, and the most obvious example is Halden Prison, is they literally built the prison in the forest.
So they kept the forest as they built the prison, and it’s become a major focus for the AMEND program.
And the AMEND program is an exchange between American correctional personnel and Scandinavian correctional personnel.
I do want to point out that it’s not just Scandinavia. In Cambodia they’ve done incredible things as far as open prisons and actually community engagement with those who are incarcerated.
So there are other cultures that are looking at this, but AMEND is the big one in the United States.
And the idea is that nature does play a significant role.
What I talked about earlier was stress. I can’t think of really a more stressful environment than a prison or a psychiatric hospital.
It’s just pins and needles, right?
So it behooves both the administration and the incarcerated individuals to have stress reduced.
I just came back two days ago from Oregon State Penitentiary that has arguably one of the most remarkable gardens you’ve ever seen. I’m about to write an article on it.
A Japanese garden designer volunteered, and he worked with incarcerated individuals who raised all the money, over $450,000.
They built the garden. One hundred twenty-five incarcerated individuals built the garden, and it is a world-class Japanese garden.
And when I was talking to them, I said, “What did you expect?”
And they said, “A koi pond,” because that was the concept, right?
It is now, as I said, a world-class garden.
But what’s very interesting is they’re now using it for the mental health program and the substance abuse program. And I interviewed people who were significant in both of those.
So its benefits have just increased incrementally due to its existence, and unanticipated but kind of obvious ones have occurred.
It’s open to all, and there’s no gang affiliation allowed in it. No drugs and no violence.
And there have been no incidents of any of those in the garden. It’s been in place since 2019.
So it can work.
Now, is it an easy environment to work in? Not really.
You have changing administration, changing wardens all the time. You have a huge public politic. So you’re always playing the card with, why should they have this?
Right? They did a crime. Why should they have any benefits at all?
Well, 95 percent of incarcerated individuals are going to come out.
How do you want them to come out?
Do you want them to come out as a transformed person? Do you want your neighbor to be somebody who says, maybe peace is an alternative to what I knew growing up as a kid?
We all make mistakes, and some of them made horrible mistakes. But it doesn’t mean that redemption is not possible.
It’s not guaranteed. It’s hard work.
And nature plays a significant role.
A lot of the gardens in prisons are actually food gardens. And part of it was the incarcerated individuals are growing their own food and the taxpayers aren’t paying for it.
It was a bit of a ruse because there are all sorts of state health regulations that they actually can’t eat the food. So a lot of it is given away in food banks.
And one interesting thing is many of the incarcerated individuals felt that it was unjust that they were forced to do work. It sort of went back to the Jim Crow era where you had prison farms. It was indentured service.
What was significant is if they could actually meet the people they were giving the food to, it was a game changer.
Because they actually felt that it was community and extending their understanding of what they did and what they could do, but it also changed the community’s point of view of who they are.
So I could go on and on, and I won’t because there are other things to talk about, but to me, it is the place most in need and could most benefit from nature inserted into the environment.
It’s trauma, trauma, trauma. Everyone there has gone through some trauma. That’s why they’re there.
And, you know, they did something on their own accord, but the background, particularly in women’s prisons, is just horrific, what you hear.
I’m not justifying the crime. Don’t get me wrong.
But I’m saying to really intervene, we have to start way, way back in childhood with domestic violence, with drug abuse, with alcoholism, with all the stuff that goes on in the household that they then emerge from.
And we know that when parents have been to prison, the incidence of children going to prison is very, very high.
So we have to break that cycle.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. Your passion and the depth of understanding is awesome. And I would love to dive deeper.
I also want to hear from Amy. I want to hear if you have anything to add to that piece, but I’m also curious—as Daniel was talking, I was wondering, well, where are you applying your passion, Amy?
Because you can tell Daniel’s got a big passion for the prison application. I’m sure there’s more, but what would you add or share?
Amy Wagenfeld:
We have a shared passion for work in the correctional environments.
In fact, we’ve co-taught studio together on various prison projects. We’ve written articles together. Absolutely. We have a shared passion.
And I’ll kind of share because Daniel was speaking about women and women’s prisons and the need for nature.
No matter if it’s a men’s prison or women’s prison, certainly those who are incarcerated are experiencing incredibly high levels of trauma.
But also those who are ancillary, I suppose is one way to say it, to those who are incarcerated—family members.
Their incidence of trauma, particularly children—and for children, childhood traumas, adverse childhood experiences. One significant adverse childhood experience is having an incarcerated parent.
So I’d like to just share briefly about some research work that I did in collaboration with Julie Stevens, who’s a professor of landscape architecture at Iowa State University, and Barb Taves, who’s a professor of criminal justice at University of Washington Tacoma.
And the three of us worked on evaluating the outcomes of Julie’s work with her design students, as well as a group of women incarcerated at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women, ICIW.
And they transformed the outdoor spaces at a newly designed prison campus to be green.
And so we evaluated and did research studies on multiple sites within the prison.
But I’d like to talk about our work we did in the visiting garden at the prison.
And this visiting garden—you know, unto itself, the new visiting room at the prison was good by prison standards. Light, there were lots of different areas for moms to interact with their visitors, children, spouses, grandparents, et cetera.
But the unbelievable thing was transforming the then-outdoor space, which was essentially kind of a large cage, into an incredible park-like environment.
And so in the course of our research, which was interviewing families and also some survey research, when we were in the garden, we’re in this visiting garden that, as I mentioned, is really akin to a park.
The children are laughing. They’re interacting with their moms or their grandmothers. They’re playing, they’re riding.
We observed moms teaching little ones how to ride bikes. People are walking, they’re strolling, they’re playing the musical instruments, playing games of tag.
I actually forgot I was behind the prison wall.
At one point, it was just a beautiful Sunday in the park.
And certainly our research demonstrated the incredible positive impact that having this visiting garden had on the quality of visits for not only the incarcerated women, but also for the family members who came to see their loved ones.
Because often the thought of going to visit someone in prison is not necessarily the happiest thought.
But children indicated that, yeah, it was really so much more fun now to come.
And, you know, who knows down the road, does this help to dial down some of the impacts of these traumatic experiences of having an incarcerated parent?
So yeah. And I am happy to share with the listeners the link to the article that was published about this study.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. And as you were talking, I’d love to get a couple photos of some of these projects that I’d love to share with folks when I share the episode. I’ll put them in the blog post.
It just all sounds absolutely healing, frankly. The right word is healing.
Well, we’ve talked for a bit, and we could talk for hours. I am not Joe Rogan, so this is not a long-form podcast.
What I want to do before we dive into the close is ask each of you if you could share a thought or something that you wish everybody knew about this work that we haven’t yet covered, or maybe something they should pay attention to or notice, or whatever it might be.
Amy, if you want to start, and then we’ll go to Daniel.
Amy Wagenfeld:
That’s an interesting question, Susan.
I think that everyone should know that everybody has a right to experience nature and to experience nature in ways that are most impactful for them.
And to think about, you know, even kind of connecting the human experience to the nature experience and thinking about nature—nature is resilient.
Think about that plant, that seed that you plant that sets down roots and pops up through the soil even in the harshest of conditions.
It’s resilient, and nature comes back.
And that we as humans can really learn from that and think about how, well, we have the capacity to be resilient as well.
And certainly also critically important to give yourself—and I don’t even know that it’s appropriate to call it a gift—but to spend time every day in nature, at least 20 minutes, maybe more, every single day, because it’s transformative.
And the environments that speak to you in terms of outdoor spaces, those are the ones that you need to frequent.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. And if all you can do is look out the window, that counts. For those—we’ve talked about that—that counts.
Amy Wagenfeld:
That absolutely counts, to just look out the window. Absolutely.
And if you’re spending your days on your computer, avert your eyes and look out the window.
Or get up, even better, and find a window view that offers some nature to look at. And if you can get outside, even better.
Susan Bailey:
Yeah. And if you can get outside, you get the bonus, if there are trees there, from the phytoncides that are going to impact your wellbeing, too.
I sat with some pine trees—I can’t remember if it was this morning—and boy, the smell of pine was so strong today.
And it was just what I needed, and I just kept saying, “Thank you, thank you.”
I felt like they were fanning me, like, you know, “Here, you need this.”
Amy Wagenfeld:
Yeah. The smells are important as well.
And I’ll add one more tiny piece to that.
Certainly everybody deserves to be in nature. And that’s the natural environment.
Where the built environment can support everyone’s experience is to make it inclusive for everyone, regardless of their age, their abilities, their preferences.
So the built environment can support the nature experience for everyone when it’s truly, truly inclusive.
Susan Bailey:
I love it. Daniel, what about you?
Daniel Winterbottom:
Yeah, it’s along the lines of what Amy was talking about.
There’s a concept called biophilia, which E.O. Wilson from Harvard—you may have heard about. And it’s basically that we grew up as hunter-gatherers. In our DNA is a need to be around nature. It’s what makes us whole.
And I fear we’re in a public health crisis on many levels. But one of them is kids just aren’t in nature like they used to be, right?
I mean, we can go into AI and go into blah, blah, blah, and I don’t know where it’s all going to go. I probably won’t be around to see it all.
But it seems that in Japan they now have an Rx for nature, where they literally prescribe an amount of nature, which is what you and Amy were talking about.
I think if it’s still in our DNA, then we have to acknowledge it and feed it. And if we’re not, we’re going to go into more of a health crisis than we are.
So I think we need to make it accessible, as Amy said.
There’s a lot of inequity in distribution of green space in urban areas, for sure. There’s also cultural responsiveness.
The other thing I would say is gardens build community.
So in my short time on this planet, I’ve noticed people are shifting to the backyard. Now, the backyard can be a sanctuary, but the front yard was a very interesting space because it’s between the private and the public.
And I think about when I lived in New York or visit Baltimore and I would be walking down the street, I’d just engage in conversations with people about the garden, right?
And there’s a reason why they’re called community gardens, because it’s a place where people can feel vulnerable because they feel safe and have these conversations to begin to weave together community.
And I feel we’ve lost that public aspect as we become more and more isolated. We feed that isolation by isolating.
So, for instance, here in Seattle, we have a huge amount of green space for an urban city, and it’s very important for wildlife.
And now we’re talking about affordable housing, high-density housing. We’re going to lose the wildlife sanctuary that we have.
But more to the point, everybody has now built fences. So everything is an isolated piece within a matrix of green.
But the social dynamics have really changed since I was a kid. We never had fences. It was just a continuous green space.
And I would hope that maybe with this public health crisis, people would acknowledge that maybe we need to share nature more and not co-opt it.
I understand we all need a sanctuary. We need a place to sit. We need a place to meditate.
I think it can be both. I don’t think it’s either/or.
But I think we have to respect that there are other species that depend on it, and those species give us hope and meaning.
So we need to also nurture them.
Susan Bailey:
Beautiful. Whew. This has been so much fun. I want to keep going, but we cannot. Alas, we cannot.
So one closing question. I call this section Natural Favorites, and I’m going to ask you each the same Natural Favorites question. And we’re just going to limit it to one for today.
So the question is: Which natural being—anything in nature—are you feeling most aligned with these days and weeks?
Any creature who—
I gave you a stumper, but it’s a creative one, and I know you’re both creative.
Daniel Winterbottom:
I guess mine would be—there’s lots of them—but to narrow it down to one, as you asked for, it’s the bald eagle.
And the bald eagle has come from almost complete extinction because of DDT to now living at Green Lake Park, which is about a quarter mile from my house.
They are an incredibly adaptable species.
They have a presence that I find awe-inspiring, and they’re critical for our systems.
So to me, it’s been an amazing story of survival and resilience, but also that human response to this.
It is our national symbol, obviously, but it also has an inherent right to survive.
And if we can do that for them, what is the potential for all these other species that are on the brink of extinction?
Susan Bailey:
I love it. It is a majestic, majestic bird.
How about you, Amy?
Amy Wagenfeld:
I think I’m going to give you a more irreverent, almost silly example.
Where I am at the moment, there is just such an abundance of squirrels.
And these squirrels, and especially the young squirrels, spend their days just playing and frolicking and just being silly and having fun.
And it seems as if they’re joyful.
And to me, in a time that is a challenging time in the world, just the lightness and simplicity that they exude really speaks very positively to me.
Susan Bailey:
I love it. I love it.
We’ve got majestic and playfulness, which is a beautiful way to end.
Amy Wagenfeld:
Absolutely.
And it just reminds us that, you know what, take time and play and to laugh and to be joyful.
Susan Bailey:
With that child that never left us, each of us. Yes.
All right. Well, thank you both so much for being here. So many resources you offer. We’ll include them in the show notes.
Just precious time spent today. I’m so grateful we had the opportunity to do this.
Daniel Winterbottom:
Thanks so much for having us, Susan. It’s been an honor.
Amy Wagenfeld:
Yes, thank you. Thank you so much.

Susan Bailey