Barrier-Free Community
Garden Design

Archeworks is collaborating with
the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago
(RIC) to create a therapeutic garden
in Washington Park.  A new community asset and gathering place, the garden
will be accessible to people with a wide range of abilities, especially disabled
and senior gardeners with limited mobility. This barrier-free garden will combine innovative architecture and landscape elements with programmatic elements that address gardeners’
physical and restorative therapeutic needs.

Archeworks students will facilitate community design workshops to elicit ideas from residents about the garden’s physical site design, and gardening and wellness programs that address specific needs and interests of disabled and other garden users. Archeworks will also collaborate with RIC stroke patients and occupational therapists as well as the therapeutic garden staff at the Chicago Botanic Garden. To further enrich our work on this project, we are developing new partnerships with the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University and the Art Therapy graduate program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Barrier-Free Garden will bring multiple community benefits in the
areas of restorative health and wellness, community building and inclusivity,
an improved natural environment and improved quality of life for residents of this Southside Chicago community. The new garden will be built and managed by the Chicago Botanic Garden.  It will be located in Washington Park adjacent to the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Green Youth Farm, an urban agriculture and youth education program for students attending Dyett High School.

For additional information on the Chicago Botanic Garden's Green Youth Farm and Buehler Enabling Garden, please visit the followinig links:
CBG - Green Youth Farm
CBG - Buehler Enabling Garden