A gradual shift in healthcare design has redefined the role of architecture and landscape in processes of healing. Recovery is increasingly understood to depend not only on medical care, but also on emotional balance, sensory comfort, and the presence of family. Within this shift, gardens have moved from peripheral features to essential spaces for rest, companionship, and everyday life. 

On the Agia Sofia campus, an old woodshop has been transformed into a residence for families accompanying a child in treatment, providing a domestic refuge for those travelling from across Greece to remain close during periods of care. Some stay a few nights; others, months. Their presence reorients the hospital’s routines, bringing domestic time into the institutional day: cooking, resting, playing, waiting. The garden extends this intimate atmosphere outdoors, offering an environment that lets families inhabit the hospital’s grounds, stay close, and share both uncertainty and hope. Designed for movement, play, and gatherings, it allows families, caregivers, and staff to share an intergenerational space where recovery is collective rather than isolated.

The garden draws from local ecology and the tradition of therapeutic landscapes. It offers shaded areas for shared meals, corners for quiet conversation, open clearings where children under treatment play alongside their siblings, and practical infrastructure—drying zones, outdoor sinks, benches—attuned to everyday life. Shaded courtyards, aromatic herbs, and textured materials invite touch and scent into daily life. The garden acts as a living interface between architecture and care,an open, evolving ground where healing can unfold in shared presence.