Hogar del Pequeño Cottolengo, Quintero – Healing Garden
“Through nature and together with organized and determined communities, it is possible to redefine pain, transforming it into something greater and more transcendental. I feel very honored to be able to admire this process.”
Valentina Schmidt, architect in charge of the project
The Little Cottolengo of Santiago, located in the Cerrillos district, began operating in 1970 and currently serves more than 340 children and adults with severe and profound intellectual disabilities from highly vulnerable social groups. One of the institution’s goals is to promote the dignity of these people—most of whom have been abandoned—through assistance, care, and education.
The facility has several green areas available to its residents, many of which have great potential to be converted into healing or therapeutic gardens that support and complement patients’ therapies and significantly contribute to improving their quality of life.
Focused on this challenge, together with the Ilumina Foundation, the Inspira Foundation, and the Little Cottolengo, we formed a cooperative alliance, with each institution committing to managing and coordinating the necessary resources to develop the grounds’ gardens, based on a landscape and infrastructure design that facilitates the development of therapeutic activities, multisensory stimulation, and recreation.
Faced with this, a first experience was generated in 2015, where a healing garden was built for the children of Little Cottolengo. Subsequently, work was done on a program focused on the adults in the facility, with the goal of directing the healing process through space and time.
In a third stage, a therapeutic garden was designed and built, which enhances the motor, physical, and cognitive activities of the various residents of this institution. The accessible garden has improved concentration, emotional balance, and camaraderie among residents, who now enjoy eating food grown by their own hands.