Falcone Healing Garden

Kent + Frost was selected through a design competition of top New England firms to design a therapeutic healing garden for the newly opened Cancer Center located in Waterford, CT. A private donor funded the $500,000 project that was dedicated in October 2014.

The garden provides benefits to patients, staff and visitors on two levels: first it serves as a sensory outdoor environment of natural beauty; secondly it appears as a compelling visual landscape seen through the overlooking windows of treatment rooms, offices and common areas.

The site occurs on the edge of a rocky hardwood forest containing dense Mountain Laurel understory. The design is inspired by this native landscape and incorporates laurel branches, local stone, ornamental and native plants in creative ways.
Visitors enter through a pergola and laurel gate into the Central Green & Gardens, a walled circular terrace containing walkways, lawn, perennial beds, cherry trees, sculpture, and a post and beam pavilion detailed with laurel branches and movable teak seating. A laurel railing overlooks the Stream bed Garden that features a waterfall, dry stream bed, stone bridge and a moongate constructed of native fieldstone. From here, the Laurel Woodland Walk brings visitors into direct contact the natural environment.

K+F provided full services from concept through completion including hands-on oversight of the construction of natural features and plantings.