Student project brings gardening to the elderly

Fourth-year architecture student and Levine Scholar Isabel Fee recently completed a community project funded through the Levine Scholars program. She designed and assisted in the construction of a special community garden at Brookdale Charlotte East, a senior living community near Albemarle Road.

The culmination of a three-year process, the raised-bed garden is designed for wheelchair accessibility, allowing Brookdale residents to actively participate in the gardening and to be physically closer to the plants and flowers to see, smell and enjoy.

A native of Charlotte and graduate of Rocky River High School, Fee began visiting Brookdale residents during her freshman year at UNC Charlotte. She noticed at that time that the residents rarely went outside and soon learned that many of them only left the building when traveling to a doctor’s appointment. She decided to use her design skills to help the residents become more engaged with the outdoors. During her sophomore year, she developed the concept for her Levine Scholars community project, which provided $8,000 to fund the garden.

During her junior year, Fee met regularly with a group of about a dozen residents who became a “garden club.” Through conversations and recorded oral histories, she accumulated residents’ stories and memories of their past outdoors activities and their suggestions for an outdoor architectural “intervention.” She enrolled in an independent study seminar with architecture professor Greg Snyder, who helped develop the design for the community garden, a 1,500-square-foot space that includes patios and seating as well as the raised planters. A large group of UNC Charlotte students from the Levine Scholars program and the School of Architecture helped construct the garden, under the direction of a professional contractor.

Brookdale Senior East hosted an opening celebration of the completed garden earlier this month, at which time the residents planted the garden beds. Fee plans to continue to work with Brookdale this academic year to study how the residents use the garden and benefit from it.