Link to Hope - Senior Thesis

Link to Hope is a pediatric outpatient rehabilitation center for children with brain tumors and brain cancer. This outpatient will be a medium-sized facility that will be a comfortable, fun, and therapeutic place for children ages three to thirteen years old and their families. Indoor and outdoor spaces will make the center a fun and intriguing space allowing the children to be creative, play, and to interact with nature while learning and growing. The idea of nature therapy and biophilic design will allow children to connect to nature and improve the child’s self esteem and motivation. Every child loves the idea of going outside to play with friends and family, playing in the sand or dirt, helping mom or dad plant flowers, and using their imagination. Link to Hope strives to find ways to improve children’s skills effected by brain tumors and what better way to do this is allow them to play and use nature as a healing aid. At this facility top technologies and therapies will be available to help them improve on their skills. An evaluation of each child will be step one of the process here at Link to Hope to help each child with their abilities and skills. This systematic evaluation will help us find the child’s potential for daily living, education, and work.

Link to Hope and the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation strive to make this outpatient meet each child’s need. This non-profit organization’s mission is to improve the treatment, quality of life and the long term outlook for children with brain and spinal cord tumors through research, support, education, and advocacy to families and survivors. Their main focus with Link to Hope is to make sure the children and their families get the help and support needed to succeed in life. The foundation puts all efforts towards the design idea of nature therapy and to let kids be creative, use their imagination, and have fun while feeling at home.

Concept Collage: Bringing therapy and nature as a whole into Link to Hope. Nature therapy has found better healing qualties and greater potential for children and adults who are recovering from an illness or disease.