Heide Museum of Modern Art and leading landscape architecture studio Openwork today revealed design details for the new Healing Garden. Inspired by Heide founder Sunday Reed’s profound love for her garden, the Healing Garden draws on the curative properties of plants and the ever-growing body of knowledge that positions gardens as a powerful tool for connecting communities, reducing social isolation and providing positive, life-affirming experiences.

Slated to open in late 2020, the Garden has been designed to facilitate healing and restoration for vulnerable communities and will now be a vital space for the broader community in the wake of COVID-19.  Circular in design, the garden draws on the concept of proxemics which considers the boundary between personal and public space and the amount of space that people feel it necessary to set between themselves and others.

The new Healing Garden is situated between Sunday Reed’s original heritage-listed kitchen garden and the brick wall of the Heide cottage, which is the most wheelchair-accessible garden on site. Incorporating six distinct clusters of different planting styles that each facilitate a variety of sensory activities, the design is sensitive to Sunday Reed’s original paths and trees. Throughout these clusters will be a series of nooks that have developed existing spaces into social areas, including seating made from leftover limestone from Heide Modern.