The Sensory Garden (2017) was designed for the Shire of Pingelly’s proposed Age Appropriate Accommodation housing development, which enables the elderly to continue living independently in a familiar and safe environment and was an important opportunity to provide an oasis of green, with climatically appropriate planting amongst and connecting the modular housing units designed by Iredale Pederson Hook Architects, due for construction in 2018. The garden is a shared circulation space (like a Street) with communal outdoor living opportunities (like in a Backyard), in a setting which incorporates the familiar landscaping and utility elements from country gardens, a superb selection of trees which create a structure for the micro climate and attract bird-life, as well as a wide range of favourite hardy plants to provide interest, colour, texture, and the evocative scents of a lifetime spent in the garden and the bush. It was very satisfying to collaborate with the Shire and the Somerset Alliance as aged care stakeholders, and keen local volunteer gardeners, to create a place which could accommodate a range of living and access criteria.

– Rosalie Pech Eva, Architect