About this Sacred Place
Bryan Health is a Nebraska governed, nonprofit health system that cares for patients, educates tomorrow’s health care providers and motivates community with fitness and health programs. Their award-winning network of doctors, hospitals and medical providers offers effective care; works with industry leaders to introduce leading-edge, proven treatments to the region; and serves rural communities through outreach clinics, mobile services and telemedicine care. They are always focused on providing the personalized care and programs that make a difference in patients’ lives.
Bryan Health’s April Sampson Cancer Center, not yet built at the time of designing its Sacred Place, aims to unite and streamline all cancer services in the Lincoln area. Acknowledging the anxiety and stress experienced by patients when they have to seek out different locations for each of their treatments, the Cancer Center will alleviate this burden, as it provides not only clinical treatments but also offers a plethora of services to steward patients’ mental and social health, ensure easily accessible conveniences, and establish a caring, comforting environment while patients undergo this process. This scope of services includes an emphasis on soothing natural surroundings with plenty of walking trails — underscoring Bryan Health’s understanding of how essential nature is to our wellbeing and our ability to heal.
Nature Sacred worked with the Bryan Health community, neighboring residents, local non-profits, and other stakeholders to provide a design centered on the unique needs of this community. This healing garden provides staff, patients, family members, and visitors to this visionary campus a natural sanctuary and place of respite. Visible from the building windows and a short walk away from it, the site is in a prime spot to become integrated into the routines of staff, patients, and family; adjacent to a stormwater pond and fountain as well as an allee of pine trees, the site was naturally already very beautiful. Key needs identified by the community were a gathering place, a way to interact or view the stormwater pond, accessible paths of variable widths and materials that could offer rehabilitating patients a bit of a challenge, and a labyrinth.
The final design divides the site into two main areas. The northern portion, the Clearing, is an open area with a lawn and a meadow, about 25 feet from the pond. Nestled between the lawn and meadow is a circular shelter. The southern portion, the Grove, is more enclosed, with a denser tree canopy, and a labyrinth. The pine allee marks the edge of the Clearing from the Grove, and its geometry – a 14 foot square grid – inspires the spacing for the entire site. Within the allee itself, there are two smaller Nature Sacred benches, one set with a view of the Clearing and the other a view of a water feature with the Grove in the background. The Portal, made of two stone columns with an archway over them, is aligned with the pine tree allee. Two art features are also included in the space. Encircling it all is a sinuous looped pathway, with multiple places to stop off and rest on a bench.
Design Team
Jay Graham, Nature Sacred Design Advisor, Moody Graham Landscape Architecture
Lanshing Hwang, Nature Sacred Design Advisor, Symbiosis
Avantika Dalal, project designer, Moody Graham Landscape Architecture
