Landscape Organization of a Sensory Garden for Children with Disabilities

Abstract

The paper investigates some design peculiarities of public green spaces used by mobility- and visually–impaired citizens. The subject of studying is a sensory garden as a tool enabling to acquire important knowledge, develop skills, control emotions, and maintain self-confidence by people with special needs. The paper aims at establishing the techniques of creating a sensory garden in a visually-impaired children’s school area based on universal (inclusive) design concepts. To this end, the paper generalizes works on forming a universal design for mobility-impaired population; considers ornamental plant assortments and the effect of introducing ornamental flora in the south of Primorsky Krai (Region); a research project has been done on landscape arranging a visually-impaired school area in the town of Artyom, Primorsky Krai (Region). As a result, a sensory garden universal design has been created which takes into consideration emotional, sensual and physical needs of physically-challenged school students who cannot feel the same as other society members in public places due to their special needs. The proposed project solution may have a positive therapeutic healing effect on school students which results from being in nature and which would allow mobility-impaired children to experience the same senses during their walks as ordinary kids do.