Evaluation of healing garden design and applications in the example of special educational institutions

Objective: The main factor underlying the Healing Gardens is to enable natural areas to heal and develop by having positive effects on people spiritually and physically. The purpose of these gardens is to create opportunities for social, spiritual and recreation by integrating structural elements, plant elements and natural areas, to increase life motivation and to strengthen their motor and social development by interacting with all elements. As a landscape architecture application area, Healing Gardens increases the quality of life of mentally handicapped and mentally retarded children with special needs by contributing to the education, therapy and development of individuals. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the sufficiency of the gardens with special education schools for the mentally retarded, mentally retarded and special needs children in Efeler Council of Aydin Province, with certain standards and to present design suggestions for this. Material and Methods: The main material of the study consists of 7 fully official special education schools for mentally retarded and mentally retarded special needs children in Efeler Council of Aydın Province. In order to determine the compliance of the school gardens selected as the study method with the national healing garden design and implementation principles the structural/vegetative status and suitability of the school gardens as a healing garden were examined with the 'design-oriented observation forms-prepared for the study areas. Structural/vegetative situation in school gardens, the sufficiency of elements/materials and being a healing garden were evaluated by scoring between 1-5. The existence of the structural elements/areas that should be found according to the healing garden criteria and the situation of the existing ones were examined. Results: A total of 300 children with mental retardation, Down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder are educated in 7 special education schools where the study was conducted. Each of the schools studied is located in 7 different neighborhoods. When the schools were evaluated structurally and vegetatively, it was determined that the garden area of the school gardens varied between 100 m2 and 9000 m2 and the largest garden area per student was 692 m2.As a result of the determinations made, when the children's outdoor activities at school and the current state of the garden are evaluated, there are a total of 115 species and 151 plants. Children's activities in the garden are limited. The spatial adequacy of the school garden and its suitability to be a healing garden were determined using the scoring system and it was determined that it did not comply with the standards and that no school was sufficient to be a healing garden. Conclusion: According to the data obtained as a result of the study, even though the 7 official special education school gardens in Aydın Province Efeler District comply with the amount of area per capita specified in the Spatial Standards Regulation of the Ministry of National Education (MEB) the areas used are structurally and herbally functional healing garden does not functional. Also when compared to the standards of the American Department of Education, the lack of space becomes more prominent. In the planning and design phase of schools, the importance of outdoor space has also come to light. The role of landscape architects in the planning and design phase is an undeniable fact.