Garden of Emotions

What was the challenge?

A 2018 study of 38,000 students in the UK found that almost nine in ten struggled with feelings of anxiety. After eighteen months of a global pandemic, these feelings have only heightened. If we don’t begin to embed a culture of care in our workplaces and institutions now, then we risk repeating the never-ending cycle of burnout that many are already experiencing. The students of today are the workforce of tomorrow. They are our future doctors, nurses, scientists and campaigners, and it is vital that their wellbeing is supported in order for our society to continue to grow.

After collaborating on People and the Pandemic with King’s College London, the university asked us to design and build a space specifically tailored to help their students — and staff — to connect more deeply with their wellbeing and needs.

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What did we do?

Nestled in Science Gallery Cafe, The Garden of Emotions is a multi-sensory environment that allows visitors to step out of their day-to-day and take a moment of personal and emotional reflection. Using elements of the natural world, large-scale provocations and nuggets of practical content, the space encourages visitors to identify and work through their individual needs, connect with others, or simply sit quietly and breathe. Open discussions facilitated by the university has revealed four key challenges that students face:

1. Coping with uncertainty

2. Building resilience

3. Lack of tools for self care

4. Loss of social connection

Whilst these feelings have been unearthed since the pandemic, they are familiar challenges that we all face in our personal and working lives. To address these, we divided the garden into four ‘zones’ of content containing exercises that support different emotional states and offer advice for self care. Each zone was built using raw wood and a warm, natural colour palette with lots of blurs and gradients to create an overarching feeling of tranquility and relaxation. Real plants and foliage from Plant Designs brought nature inside to boost visitors’ dopamine and serotonin levels, and field recordings from Radio Lento filled the air with soothing birdsong.

Soundscapes by Radio Lento

What has the impact been?

Representatives from the King’s Student Union curated a diverse programme of wellbeing workshops that took place in the Garden of Emotions in order to help students to rebuild connections with each other and encourage new conversations around mental health.

Our own wellbeing event, Building a Culture of Care, took place in March and explored the intersection between design, psychology and wellbeing. Sarah Atayero, clinical psychologist and Managing Director of BiPP and Joan Bowen, Organisational Psychologist and Staff Health and Wellbeing Manager at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, joined The Liminal Space director Amanda Gore to discuss the radical benefits of creating a culture of care in the workplace with key stakeholders from across London’s health and wellbeing sector.

The Garden of Emotions has been designed to be a multi-sensory experience that offers a compact wellbeing solution, taking over a small space but creating a big impact. If you would like us to create a wellbeing space for your team, get in touch to find out more.

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COLLABORATORS

Plants: Plant Designs
Sound: Radio Lento
Lighting: Marty Langthorne