WINTER READING

Recent releases that excite the gardener’s mind

NATURE, DESIGN, AND HEALTH

by David Kamp

Library of American Landscape History, 2023

In Nature, Design, and Health, David Kamp looks back on his 40-year career as a landscape architect, educator and advocate. He is the principal of the design firm Dirtworks, which he named for his guiding belief that when life feels like a struggle, or even downright chaotic, "dirt works" to fix our outlook. Explaining the name, he writes "nature can provide balance in our lives." Although Kamp always believed in nature as a source of healing, a personal crisis about eight years into his career helped him see the role design might play. A close friend and Kamp's mother were both coping with serious illness; meanwhile, he tested positive for HIV and began treatment. As he coped with his emotions and observed different health-care settings, including his mother's home-based care, he realized how much landscape design can improve the lives of patients, their families and care workers.

Health problems present physical, emotional and mental challenges. Kamp's first opportunity to design with these challenges in mind came soon, when he volunteered to plan a garden for people with HIV/AIDS on the campus of a medical facility in New York City. In the book, he looks in depth at this project and then at a series of other projects from medical settings to community spaces, schools and private homes.

In sharing each project, Kamp explains various issues that came up and how he resolved them. For example, he describes balancing patients' desire for privacy in an outdoor space with the staff's need to observe them. He mentions how walls often feel threatening to people with dementia, so he had to find a way to make an assisted-living facility's garden feel secure and defined while keeping its edges subtle. These details are fascinating.