Sensory Crafting is a design for a Sensory Garden at Nobel International School in Portugal. The brief was to create a learning environment based on the new curriculum at the school called the ‘Mindfulness Curriculum’.

In order to prepare for designing within this specific context I joined the mindfulness lessons of the students, as well as taking an 8-week teacher’s course in ‘Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction’, observing as well as actively participating. As this is a new curriculum implemented at the school, the Mindfulness course itself is a trial to see how the students react and interact to the given information. To introduce this course the first set of lessons focussed on exploring the senses inside and outside the classroom.

After the first 6 weeks, when the students had been thoroughly introduced to the topic of mindfulness and what this means, I asked the entire primary school to brainstorm ideas of what they would like to see in their sensory garden. Using their ideas as a brief, I created a concept image by putting their drawings into the site, and then designing the space based on this.

The Garden Design

The garden is split into 4 sensory sections: ‘Live’ Music, Live Herbarium, the Herb box and the sensory path.

Each of these sections have multiple outlets into the 5 senses.

‘Live Music’ is an interactive and interchangeable music stand in the garden. The idea is to create different types of musical instruments based on what we can find in our surroundings. For example, using a variety or barks and wood to create different sounds.

The ‘Live Herbarium’ is based on the same principle as in ‘Hand in Hand’, to see how different plants grow from the root to the flower. This is focussed on the senses of taste, smell, sight and touch.

The Herb box will be added into the garden and used by the Almancil Catering team in the school lunches, thus allowing the students to learn about growing their own food. The herb box falls under all 5 sensory categories.

The Sensory Path is a further interchangeable aspect of the garden, in which the textures can be changed according to the curriculum and the classes. This is also an aspect that can enhance knowledge about the environment the learners are growing up in.