Niedersachsen+Bremen

For some time now, the design of therapy gardens has received increasing attention, both from a planning point of view and from the scientific community.

A creatively appealing environment supports the effect of garden therapy, which can activate the whole person - depending on the course of life - in a profound and multi-layered way.

This was taken as an opportunity to offer the FirmenGärten (Company Gardens) competition, which has been held since 2002 and in which more than 200 companies have participated to date, this year specifically for this topic area.

The competition is looking for gardens in health care, nursing and therapy facilities of any kind in Lower Saxony and Bremen which - integrated into an overall nursing and/or therapeutic concept - contribute to increasing the quality of life of patients/residents, employees and visitors, optimally integrate the building into its surroundings, contribute to environmental protection and increase biodiversity on the premises.

The aim is to find out which gardens already exist, what is successful in them and to make exemplary gardens known to the public.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, where are they, the most beautiful care and therapy gardens in the whole country is the motto.

In order to find out in a competition in the federal states of Bremen and Lower Saxony, the Association of Garden and Landscape Builders (VGL), the Association of German Landscape Architects (bdla), the German Environmental Foundation (DBU) and the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences (departments of landscape architecture and nursing sciences) have joined forces. With the support of the AOK and experts from the fields of health - care - therapy, the jury would like to sift through and evaluate the applicant gardens and ultimately award a public prize to the most successful ones at a closing event and present them in terms of content.

Competition entries can be submitted from 06 March to 31 May 2017 at the following link: www.firmengarten-wettbewerb.de

After evaluation - which may well include an on-site meeting with the jury - the award ceremony for the best installations will follow at a symposium on 27 September.

What will be evaluated:

The focus will be on grading the facility with respect to the themes of.

• Health-Care-Therapy

but also the topics

• Social function
• design quality as well as the
• environmental quality.

are evaluated.

Contact/enquiries:

Karen-M. Flachmann, Tel.: 0541/66 88 69 37

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.