At Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, healing extends beyond the walls of the clinical environment. Adjacent to the hospital’s integrative medicine building, the Integrative Medicine Garden transforms the landscape into an active extension of care, providing a restorative environment that supports the mind, body, and spirit.
Drawing on evidence-based principles of healthcare design, RVi shaped the garden around opportunities for movement, mindfulness, reflection, and connection to nature. A multipurpose yoga lawn, private meditation areas, sunny and shaded seating, sensory plantings, and calming water features create a sequence of experiences for patients, families, staff, and visitors. Together, these spaces demonstrate how thoughtfully designed outdoor environments can support whole-person wellness and make the landscape a meaningful part of the healing journey.
GOALS
RVi approached the Integrative Medicine Garden as more than an outdoor amenity. As part of the hospital’s broader modernization efforts, the project presented an opportunity to extend integrative medicine programs into the landscape while creating a restorative environment responsive to the emotional and physical needs of patients, staff, and visitors.
Working alongside Anderson Mikos Architects and hospital stakeholders, RVi developed a landscape program centered on mind, body, and spirit. The garden needed to support a range of wellness activities, from yoga and gentle movement to meditation, conversation, and quiet reflection, while maintaining comfort and privacy within the larger medical campus.
Choice became an important part of the experience. In a healthcare environment where much of a patient’s journey may feel prescribed, the landscape provides opportunities to decide how to engage with the surroundings, seeking sun or shade, activity or stillness, conversation or solitude. Through intuitive circulation, flexible spaces, planting, seating, screening, and sensory elements, RVi created an outdoor environment that supports individual needs while strengthening connections between integrative care, nature, and the broader campus.
OUTCOMES
The completed Integrative Medicine Garden creates a therapeutic outdoor environment where patients, staff, and visitors can connect with nature, practice mindfulness, and find moments of respite throughout the day. A flexible yoga lawn extends wellness programming outdoors, while meandering pathways connect private meditation areas and a variety of sunny and shaded gathering spaces designed for both individual reflection and group activities.
Water plays an important sensory role throughout the garden. A large, illuminated water wall creates a visual focal point while introducing soothing sound and movement that contribute to relaxation and stress reduction. A smaller stone water feature extends that experience deeper into the landscape. Evergreen plantings and layered landscaping provide privacy and separation from surrounding medical campus activity, creating a greater sense of enclosure and immersion in nature.
Throughout the garden, design decisions balance restorative experience with comfort, function, and long-term performance. Darker paving helps minimize glare for visitors with heightened light sensitivity, while pergolas and strategically located seating provide options for rest in sun or shade. Trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants introduce seasonal color, texture, and fragrance, enriching the sensory qualities of the landscape. Permeable paving supports natural stormwater management, while low-level lighting allows the garden to remain a welcoming presence into the evening.
The project also contributes to a larger campus environment shaped around wellness, sustainability, and human-centered design. Green roofs, walking paths, and other green infrastructure reinforce environmental performance while encouraging movement and access to the outdoors. Viewed within this broader framework, the Integrative Medicine Garden becomes an intimate expression of a campus-wide healing landscape—demonstrating how landscape architecture can support healthcare at multiple scales, from a quiet moment of reflection to the overall experience of moving through a medical campus.
