Nature helps nurture relationships between incarcerated mothers and their children
The new design at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women called for plants and play spaces, which were big improvements over brick and razor wire. (Iowa State University student design team/)Julie Stevens is an associate professor of landscape architecture at Iowa State University. This story originally featured on The Conversation.Leaves are rustling. You can hear the sound of children kicking a ball, plinking the keys of a toy xylophone. People are laughing and talking.Are you picturing a prison? My colleagues and I did—and we turned these visions into reality. The garden and playscape we created at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women (ICIW) is changing the way incarcerated women spend time with their children, family and friends.“Home” is not a word typically associated with prison environments, but that’s one way respondents in our recent study described the new outdoor area. Our design-build team made up of Iowa State University design...