How can landscape design foster community engagement and well-being?

Amidst this scene, a garden so divine, With blooms, fountains, and birds that shine, Yet, crucially missed, a bench, the sign, To welcome weary hearts, in need of a line. In solitude, it waited, longing to be complete, To invite visitors, where stories could meet, The bench's absence, a void, a defeat, In its presence, the garden's charm would fleet.

Designing spaces for social interaction requires attention to various elements that can help strengthen communication and interactions between people. Designing squares that can be used for social events, local markets and celebrations. Creating spaces that can be used as places for concerts, exhibitions and social activities. Using canopies and trees to create cool and pleasant areas. Creating sports field for group sports that invite people to interact and cooperates. Designing routs that encourage people to sports and recreational activities. Using public art such as sculptures and murals to attract attention and create conversation.

Community gardens are a wonderful way to encourage people of all abilities within the community to interact with the garden and each other. Include ramp access for people in wheelchairs. Then you can plan for people with other difficulties, such as raised veggie beds for people with back pain, flat ground for people unsteady on their feet, and battery-powered secateurs for people with pain in their hands.

Designing green space means offering a conscious immersion in nature, that is, making people imagine that all our actions can take place in a sustainable way.

Very true. Enabling social Interaction is one of the most important role of landscape design. It is a platform where community can get together, interact , and enjoy the beauty of the place. The landscape design besides being attractive needs to be functional in this aspect.

To foster physical activity, I create engaging parks with play structures and sports courts, develop green corridors for walking and biking, and add interactive features like climbing walls and community gardens. Hosting events like fun runs and yoga classes encourages social engagement, while shaded seating and water stations ensure comfort, making outdoor activity enjoyable and accessible for all.

Re-envisioning the purpose of landscapes is critical to human, ecological and planetary health. We need to create purposeful landscapes to evolve with our changing climate. What if we provide more open native plant and grass spaces to explore and protect instead of watering and maintaining miles of endless turf grass? What if we give children and adults more places to explore nature within the city while supporting urban habitat at the same time. It's been proven that gardens and natural spaces improve mental and physical well being when the public has more access to these places.

Carefully planned landscaping will not only provide a visually appealing and intriguing space but also a functional space. Without this functionality, citizens would not be able to utilize the amenities provided by their local parks, organizations, and businesses. One of my main goals as a Park Ranger is to facilitate community engagement and encourage physical activity. Physical activity increases personal well-being and positive mental health. How each community landscape is designed and maintained can affect physical well-being for years to come. Poorly designed and maintained landscapes discourage community engagement. For this reason, it is important to carefully design each landscape and keep them maintained to avoid adverse effects.

Studies have shown that patients in hospitals heal faster when they have a view of trees or gardens. In a world where we all live within 50 feet of a parking lot, we need to value our human attachment to nature and the mutual benefit it provides. Including green spaces filled with trees, plants and grasses in our urban centers not only supports human well-being, it benefits biodiveristy and wildlife habitat at the same time.

One method used in therapeutic horticulture is the focus on sensory elements within a garden. Plants can provide a variety of visual, audible, olfactory, tactile and tasty experiences. This approach can be tailored to mental health patients, people with PTSD, people with disabilities, the elderly, as well as adults and children of all ages.

Landscape design can encourage community involvement by creating spaces that promote civic engagement and interaction. Areas like plazas and amphitheatres can become venues for events, performances, and gatherings that unite people and address community issues. Incorporating elements such as murals, sculptures, or community boards can showcase local culture and invite public participation. These spaces help foster social connections, promote dialogue, and strengthen a sense of community ownership, contributing to overall well-being and shared responsibility within the neighbourhood.

We Are in Era where electronics controlling our youth mind, even us adults, if we want to make the community come together on the neighborhood garden, we need to be creative on them, the old garden/playground ideas, will not attract people that much, we need to know what attract people, since electronic are in every step in our life, and people love to take picture to communicate with each other, why not make a man made land mark/decoration that can be beautiful spot to take pictures on them. and to make the dynamic of this idea, how about we make them movable, we can exchange those decoration from 1 garden to another every now and then, to make an excitement changes on the gardens. new decoration every time.

Public parks are civics spaces that every citizen is attached to and bear a sense of belonging it. It is this sense of belonging and shared experiences that can be leveraged upon to foster community participation. For instance, while designing a landscape space, if the community is able to envisage the value addition that the space will bring to their social/ civic life, fostering community participation can be easily achieved.