Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Brent C. Chamberlain / In the United States there are approximately 2.2 million people incarcerated in prisons and jails, making the U.S. incarcerated population the largest in the world (Kaeble and Glaze, 2016; Lindemuth, 2014). With the expansion of the prison population, women now comprise a larger portion than ever before (FBJS, 2010). There are approximately 100,000 women incarcerated in US federal and state prisons (FBJS, 2015). Many facilities do not contain adequate programs to help rehabilitate these women (Young, 2000). Prisons are often termed “correctional facilities”, but struggle to promote positive behavior and well-being (Pacholke, 2014; Haney, 2001; SuedFeld, 1980). When the prison environment is examined, it is often found that prisons are bleak, unwelcoming institutions (Lindemuth, 2014). This prompts the question: How can landscape architects design prison environments that improve psychological health and promote positive behavior? Evidence suggests that exposure to nature improves psychological health and promotes positive behavior (Moore, 1981; Ulrich, 1984, Ulrich, 1991, Hartig, 1991). Many studies report on the effects of therapeutic landscapes in healthcare settings, (e.g. Ulrich, 1999; Cooper Marcus & Barnes, 1995, 1999; Mitrione and Larson, 2007), however, limited literature exists on therapeutic landscapes within the prison context. The focus of this report is to explore how landscapes within women’s prison facilities can be designed to reduce stress and promote positive behavior.

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Landscape architects design healing gardens at healthcare facilities to support patients, visitors, caregivers, and staff. Many acknowledge that medical staff regularly visit healing gardens to escape work-related stress (Marcus and Sachs, 2014). Rarely, however, are healing gardens on medical campuses designed specifically to support physicians' well-being. There is a void in healing garden design theory. Reports on the prevalence of physician burnout, warn of a widespread crisis and dismal reality within the medical community (T. D. Shanafelt et al., 2015). Researchers pronounce an urgent need for evidence-based interventions, which address individual contributing factors to burnout (Christina Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter, 1986). By investigating the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, an evidence-based therapy, clinically proven to cultivate emotional healing, for physicians suffering burnout, this research reveals how a therapeutic garden could meld mindfulness-based practices with environmental theory; healing garden design precedents; and healthcare design typologies. Finally, mindfulness-based landscape design guidelines describe how a private, restorative, healing garden could help maintain physicians' well-being and rehabilitate physicians experiencing burnout due to emotional exhaustion within the workplace. / Master of Landscape Architecture / Healing gardens have been proven successful as a therapeutic approach to reduce emotional distress. This thesis argues that therapeutic gardens, designed for medical facilities, are not suitable for physicians struggling with burnout. This research seeks to understand how a private healing garden in a medical setting could help build and maintain physicians’ emotional resilience while rehabilitating physicians experiencing burnout. Through an in-depth review of therapeutic garden design theory and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) therapy, this research highlights the shared values between the two methods used to alleviate emotional distress. Characteristics of physicians’ emotional exhaustion, social isolation, and workplace environment are teased out and organized for design intent. Elements of mindfulness-based therapy are related to existing healing garden design programs. Relationships found enhance healing garden design theory and serve as guidelines for Mindfulness-Based Landscape Design specifically for physicians in healthcare settings. Correlations between design and wellness also address the need for landscape architects who contribute to a dynamic, active, and participatory design process.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Geography / Bimal K. Paul / Medical tourism comprises a phenomenon where over five million patients a year are traveling across international borders to obtain various forms of health care. Most of these patients travel from developed countries to developing countries, seeking highly invasive medical treatments to less invasive and recreational medical procedures. By the year 2012, the medical tourism industry generated over $100 billion with over 50 countries making it a priority in trade for their country. With active government promotions, India has become one of the leading destinations for medical tourism. The objective of this research was to answer the questions: 1) how do the attitudes and behaviors of patients towards the concept of medical tourism influence their decision to become a medical tourist; 2) why do medical tourists seek treatment in India; and 3) what are the issues and challenges they face before coming to India as well as while in India. Interviews of thirty-four foreign patients were conducted in six sites spread across the South-Indian cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai which revealed useful information in addressing the research objectives. The three most important reasons that these medical tourists chose India for their treatments were: 1) the high quality of the doctors and medical facilities in India, 2) the affordable cost of treatments, and 3) the availability of specific treatments that might not have been available in their home countries. Patients also researched the topic thoroughly before they came to India. Knowledge was gained primarily from the Internet, print media, television shows and friends. Overall, the patients had very positive attitudes towards medical tourism. Most of them felt that they could get treatment because of their positive opinion on medical tourism, their ability to get treatment if they desired, and support from their families and loved ones.

Since the closing of total institutions in Sweden people with severe mental problems have access to places in the society in a completely different way. Prior international studies indicate that so called therapeutic landscapes can contribute to the recovery of people with severe mental problems. The aim of this study is to examine if this can be applied in a Swedish context. What places can be included in a therapeutic landscape and what about these places can influence recovery? Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven adults with severe mental problems, followed by a thematic analysis. The result indicates that places offered by the Swedish social services, in public places and in nature can be included in a therapeutic landscape. The places can evoke a feeling of affinity, offer a change of scenery and enable activities and relationships that can contribute to recovery. Social work plays an important part in offering access to different places, as well as creating them, and can therefore contribute to a recovery process. However, people with severe mental problems are also social agents that actively can influence their own recovery and thereby strengthen their sense of self.

Domestic violence against women and children is a significant international issue. There are many obstacles survivors face, and the problem is more complex than is often perceived. This interior design practicum responds by focusing on the design of a transitional housing facility that creates a paradigm shift away from the institutional approach. The key interior spaces include areas that help individuals nourish and heal from their challenging experiences; the overall approach focused on establishing community networks amongst the residents. The overarching architectural language and designs were informed primarily by Japanese Zen, Theory of Supportive Design, Lifeboat theory, and Experiential Learning Theory. Additional literature investigation on Shinrin-yoku and Therapeutic Landscapes have helped to shape the final programme and design. Along with relevant precedent studies, a design has been proposed called Hana's Place, a transitional housing facility that is aimed at being a place survivors of domestic violence can call home.

Domestic violence against women and children is a significant international issue. There are many obstacles survivors face, and the problem is more complex than is often perceived. This interior design practicum responds by focusing on the design of a transitional housing facility that creates a paradigm shift away from the institutional approach. The key interior spaces include areas that help individuals nourish and heal from their challenging experiences; the overall approach focused on establishing community networks amongst the residents. The overarching architectural language and designs were informed primarily by Japanese Zen, Theory of Supportive Design, Lifeboat theory, and Experiential Learning Theory. Additional literature investigation on Shinrin-yoku and Therapeutic Landscapes have helped to shape the final programme and design. Along with relevant precedent studies, a design has been proposed called Hana's Place, a transitional housing facility that is aimed at being a place survivors of domestic violence can call home.

This thesis explores the ways in which Christian faith ‘adds value’ to the ‘carescape’ and ‘caringscapes’ of statutory hostels for people experiencing homelessness in the United Kingdom. The ways that a distinctively Christian organisational ethos is created and experienced through the material, regulatory and performative dimensions of space, place and subjectivity, are explored through a case study of the Salvation Army’s contemporary statutory accommodation services for single homeless people. Drawing upon Cloke’s notions of ‘theo-ethics’ and Conradson’s concept of ‘therapeutic landscape experience’, the links between spirituality, care and ‘value added’ are examined from the perspective of staff, volunteers and service users. This analysis extends the debate on the potential for faith-based organisations to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to care for people experiencing homelessness, by foregrounding the spiritual and emotional dimensions that texture these organisational landscapes of care. A feminist epistemological approach is taken to illuminate the nuances of care-giving and care-receiving, with particular attention paid to the emotional and spiritual sensitivities underpinning social interactions, and how these dimensions are perceived, narrated and experienced from a variety of perspectives. Using an ethnographic methodology, this study involved the undertaking of 91 semi-structured interviews, a six-week period of participant observation in a specific Salvation Army Lifehouse, and attendance at four professional social service and chaplaincy conferences run by the Salvation Army UK. The research findings suggest that Christianity adds value to these institutional spaces of care in a highly nuanced way, dependent on one’s subjectivity. A second observation is that the potential for faith to add value within statutory arenas of care for the homeless is being compromised due to the pressures associated with the incumbent neoliberal contract culture within which Lifehouses are embedded. A third contribution concerns the potential for a faith-based organisation to act as a crucible for the emergence of postsecular rapprochement: it is suggested that an intersectional approach to analysing this socio-spatial process is necessary, due to the strategic role that gender, age, sexuality and race were revealed to play in fostering, or dissipating, the affective relationships that underpinned fragile moments of rapprochement.