Healthcare Garden Design Certificate Program
Industry-leading Faculty
The Chicago Botanic Garden has brought together a selection of the nation’s most renowned experts in the field of healthcare garden design and research.
Marni Barnes, LCSW, APATH, ASLA, is a founder of the Therapeutic Garden movement. Drawing on her international experience as a psychotherapist, landscape architect and contractor she applies her expertise to creating therapeutic landscapes in public and private settings. Barnes has received many multi-disciplinary awards for her research and writing (AIA, AHTA, EDRA, ASLA, Open Spaces Sacred Places). Recent projects include site planning and design for the Royal Government of Bhutan's Centre for Gross National Happiness, and consulting with Miyagi University on community restoration in tsunami devastated areas of Japan. She is currently teaching in the US, Japan and Taiwan.
Jack Carman, FASLA, RLA, is president of Design for Generations, Medford, New Jersey. As a design consultant, Jack has specialized in creating therapeutic exterior environments for senior communities and healthcare facilities. His design experience includes the creation of Landscape Plans for Assisted Living and Alzheimer Residences, Adult Day Health Care Centers, Long Term Care Facilities, Continuing Care Retirement Communities and Healthcare Facilities throughout the US. This includes the design of over 65 Memory Care Gardens for individuals with dementia nation-wide. He is editor and contributor of the book, Re-creating Neighborhoods for Successful Aging.
Clare Cooper Marcus, professor emerita, departments of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of California, and principal of Healing Landscapes, Berkley, California. She is internationally recognized for pioneering research on the psychological and sociological aspects of architecture and landscape design, particularly urban open space and therapeutic landscapes. She is co-author, with Naomi Sachs, of Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces (Wiley, 2014).
Mark Epstein, PLA, is a partner with Hafs-Epstein, a landscape architecture design firm in Seattle, Washington. His firm puts priority on bridging research with practice, utilizing human psychology and site ecology in bringing ideas to life. Mark helped establish the ASLA Therapeutic Garden Design Professional Practice Network, and he specializes in the creation of therapeutic gardens within public parks.
Gwenn Fried, Glass Garden, Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York, New York. A horticultural therapist at the Glass Garden since 1997, and curator of the Rusk outdoor gardens, she focuses on the anthropological uses of plants through history, and weaves these lessons into classes for seniors and children.
Robert Hoover, ASLA, principal and founder of HBLA, Inc., Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has over 33 years of professional experience in the practice of Landscape Architecture. Hoover specializes in therapeutic gardens and site planning for Senior Living, Alzheimer’s disease and Hospice and has personally designed well over 100 projects. A true pioneer, Hoover researched, developed and published in the 1995 March / April issue of The American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the first-of-its-kind, therapeutic landscape design theory for the complete spectrum of Alzheimer’s disease. Hoover holds two landscape degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design from University of Massachusetts and a Master of Landscape Architecture, graduating with Distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Geoffrey Roehll, ASLA, senior vice president of the healthcare design team Hitchcock Design Group, Naperville, Illinois. Since joining Hitchcock Design group in 1990, Roehll has demonstrated his leadership, planning, and design skills on prominent projects in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida and has directed many landmark projects in the healthcare market. With a diverse background in planning and design for complex large scale projects, he is now focused exclusively on healing environments and practices based on each of their projects.
Naomi Sachs, PHD, MLA, ASLA, EDAC, is Founding Director of the Therapeutic Landscapes Network. Sachs received her PhD in Architecture from Texas A&M University, was a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, and received her MLA from the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught and spoken about the restorative benefits of nature in the United States and abroad, and has written and been interviewed extensively on the subject. Sachs is also Principal at Naomi Sachs Design. She is co-author with Clare Cooper Marcus of the book Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces (Wiley, 2014).