HOW TO PROJECT HEALING LANDSCAPE?

This paper summarizes the experience of an interdisciplinary working group composed of a psychologist, an architect, an agronomist and a forester who have been involved in a project for the open spaces of a farm designed to host individuals suffering from slight psychic and psychiatric disorders.
The individuals, the spaces and the dynamics which are the basis of their interaction are the elements of this research. Focusing at first on the treatment of mental diseases and facing the work experience with people affected by mental disorders, some elements for a reflection on the relationships between individuals and open spaces are provided.
The authors are convinced that the landscape project originates from the reading of the place and from the needs of the people who live there, and they are aware that spaces contain signs which are able to promote the activation of specific cognitive processes linked to the treatment. This planning approach is expressed in the first part of the article. In the second part, the study case reports the main project elements that have been drought as the result of our drafted project’s methodological path.