Open Spaces Sacred Places Newsletter
Planning Grants Announced
Open Spaces Sacred Places: The Healing Power of Nature, National Awards Program for Integrated Research and Design Projects, announces the selection of $500,000 in planning grants to 11 cross-disciplinary teams funded through the TKF Foundation.
The planning grant awardees exhibit the potential to generate more complete knowledge about the benefits and impacts that result from user experiences of nature-based sacred spaces in cities. Selected projects embody the potential to be replicable in their intent, and generalizable in the challenges they address, to serve as possible archetypes for the design of urban areas across the U.S.
The eleven teams are:
From Afar: Garden of Transitions, Utica, NY Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees
The Green Road, Bethesda, MD Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
Intergenerational/Multicultural Community Garden, Malden, MA City of Malden Redevelopment Authority
Landscapes of Resilience: Understanding the creation and stewardship of Open Spaces Sacred Places, Joplin, MO & Detroit, MI Cornell University Civic Ecology Lab
Mechanisms of Nature Restoration, Washington, DC & Baltimore, MD Metro Areas Rotman Research Institute
Naval Hospital Cemetery Memorial Landscape, Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Greenway Initiative
An Open Space Sacred Place for Life Enhancement, Tucson, AZ & Bronx, NY Canyon Ranch Institute
Reflections: People on the Waterfront, Seattle, WA Pomegranate Center
The Space Within, San Diego, CA Groundwork San Diego-Chollas Creek
Therapeutic Healing Garden, Portland, OR Emanuel Medical Center Foundation
Waukegan Area Sacred Spaces, Waukegan, IL Parkland College
For more information and a full listing of grantee team members, please visit:
http://www.opensacred.org/grants/planning-grant-awardees
Final Request for Proposals:
The final phase of the Open Spaces Sacred Places National Awards Program for Integrated Research and Design Projects’ Request for Proposals will be released February 1, 2012. The program was enacted in 2 phases, a Planning Grant Phase, now closed, followed by an open call for proposals. Final Awards will fund significant new sacred public green spaces that demonstrate a combination of high quality design-build and rigorous research about user impacts. The total funding pool available is $4 million. Funding will be provided to cross-disciplinary teams that are able to 1) conceptualize, plan, design and implement an open and sacred green space, 2) conduct associated research study(ies), and 3) communicate scientific findings.
Note: A prior planning grant award is not a criterion for eligibility to apply for the final funding phase of the National Awards, nor will planning grant recipients be automatically favored in the National Awards review process. The Awards Program is open to any project proposal that meets the eligibility criteria as specified in the request for proposals to be released 2/1/12.
Connections
‘The garden is beautiful; it has come so alive with life – flowers blooming, birds singing, sun shimmering, and the little stream running through. What more do we want or need? Nothing – this is the sustenance of the human spirit.’
Journal entry from the Open Spaces Sacred Places bench at the Anne Arundel Medical Center.
