Haben Girma

Sensory Gardens: Ireland Versus Sweden

Dreaming of a garden oasis? Allow me to share my experiences visiting the Garden for the Blind in Dublin, Ireland, and a sensory garden in Lund, Sweden. Each one teaches an accessibility feature communities can add to create beautiful, multisensory gardens.  

Descriptive Transcript

Haben wears a short-sleeved navy blue dress, with her elbow resting on a smooth stone wall. Her hair and the vibrant green plants behind her sway gently in the wind.

Haben: This is the first time I’ve found Braille labels in a garden. And we have a metal plaque here with Braille: English, scientific name, and then the common name. 

She turns to face the rock wall and places her hands on the metal plaque. A photo of the metal plaque appears on screen. Along the top is a row of Braille, and below that are the scientific and common names in large print.

Haben: And this one is… Rock Rose.

We cut back to the video of Haben facing the camera.

Haben: And the flowers are right behind me.

She gestures to a shrub with thin green leaves and small flowers with delicate pink petals surrounding a yellow center.

Haben: There are about 30 different plants with labels here. We are in St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin, Ireland.

The camera pans over a tall garden bed. Plaques line the top of the rock wall, each one with a different plant behind it. Beyond the garden stretches an expansive lawn enjoyed by many people. Some sit on the grass while others soak up the sun from the benches.

Haben: They call it the Garden for the Blind. But when I visited, there were about four people sitting on benches reading books with their eyes. When we design spaces for disabled people, oftentimes nondisabled  people are enjoying them, too!

The scene changes to Haben standing in front of a black curtain wearing a sleeveless navy blue dress.

Haben: If you’re wondering, I did not ask the sighted people to leave the garden. I’m happy to have an accessible garden that’s shared with everyone! Blind people, sighted people… And a few weeks later, I actually found another garden with Braille.

She sits on the wooden frame of a raised garden bed full of small plants. She has Mylo’s leash in one hand and gestures with the other as she talks.

Haben: We found a sensory garden in Lund, Sweden. So there are labels with print and Braille. The print is also raised, so if you can’t read Braille, you can feel the print. And some of these are here because they have an amazing scent. Or in the case of one, an unpleasant scent. And then some of them are here because they have a really cool texture like lamb ears. The labels are in Braille and it’s Swedish Braille. But sometimes you can kind of guess, even if you’re not a Swedish speaker, what’s happening here. So I’m going to read one of these.

She reaches out to a small sign attached to a stick partially submerged in the dirt beside a plant.

Haben: So the label is C-H-O-K-L-A-D M-Y-N-T-A. Chokladmynta? Chocolate mint!

She stands in front of the black curtain, speaking to the camera.

Haben: I want to point out a few differences. The Irish garden had higher garden beds. And that means someone doesn’t have to bend down as much to reach out, to reach the plants or read the sign.

The video shows the tall Irish garden beds with metal plaques secured to the stone walls. The garden beds are about four feet tall.

Haben: But it also means it’s going to be more challenging for people who are shorter, use wheelchairs, or kids. Whereas the Swedish garden also has raised planters, but it’s lower down.

The camera sweeps over one of the Swedish garden beds, showing the low wooden borders, small plants, and their signs that stick up from the soil. The beds are about two feet tall.

Haben: So you’re not completely down on the ground. But it’s at a point where if you’re lower down because you’re a little kid or you’re coming by on a wheelchair, you still are able to reach over and touch a plant or read the Braille sign.

She speaks from the room with the black curtain.

Haben: Another difference is that the signage in the Irish garden is metal, and that’s more durable.

The image of the metal Rock Rose sign appears on screen. It’s followed by a zoomed-in video of Haben’s hand resting on the sign, ready to read.

Haben: So when I was reading the signs, all the dots were there. But in Sweden, some of the dots were missing. I know the Swedish winters are really tough, especially on gardens and on Braille signs. So if you’re not using something as durable as metal, you have to maintain the signs regularly or switch over to something that’s more durable.

She smiles.

Haben: I love traveling because I get to see… or FEEL the different strategies people use all over the world!

Trying Vegan Donuts in Berlin

Video description

I’m sitting at a picnic table with three colorful round pastries in front of me. Behind me is my German Shepherd Seeing Eye dog, and a cobblestone square lined with trees.

Haben: This is going to be my first vegan donut experience. These are from Brammibal’s, and they’re actually the first fully vegan donut shop in Europe. The one on my left has lots of crumbles on top. And it’s heavy with some kind of filling inside. It’s overwhelmingly sweet, which is what you want in a donut. And the crumbles are little bits of pistachio, and it’s a good balance of nutty pistachio and also creamy sweetness. I wouldn’t have known it was a vegan donut. It just kind of tastes like a nutty pistachio donut. And then there’s another one!

She picks up the middle donut.

Haben: So I want to be able to share with these videos and travels that disabled people can have fun, can enjoy life. And it’s really about making our world more accessible so disabled people have access to all the different opportunities available to nondisabled people. Even if it’s access to doughnuts! So, what is this one?

She takes a bite.

Haben: Strawberry! Sometimes donuts have very mild flavors, and this one has a very strong strawberry flavor. So I like that. The third and final donut!

She tries it.

Haben: It has more of a white chocolate flavor with bits of strawberry on top. My favorite is going to be the strawberry donut.

She sets the white chocolate donut back on the table.

Haben: The second is pistachio. Even though they’re vegan, they’re still donuts!

Take a Tactile Tour of the Healthy Materials Lab

Blind and sighted people can learn about cutting edge textiles at the Healthy Materials Lab. Taking a tactile tour introduced me to textures I’d read about but never felt, and others that completely surprised me. Located on the Parsons School of Design campus, part of The New School in New York City, the lab gives design students the opportunity to touch, smell, and experiment with innovative, healthier materials. Enjoy this descriptive video tour with Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice Sugandha Gupta and graduate research assistant Ahmad Abbasi.

Descriptive Transcript

Sugandha: So I would like to start with this kombucha leather. I’m holding it in my hands. It is a brownish color and it’s very translucent. So it’s like a blend of maybe a rust and a brown color. It’s translucent and it’s made out of kombucha tea with the fermentation process. It has a very strong, pungent smell, and you can almost smell the tea. And it’s very tempting. You almost want to eat it.

My name is Sugandha Gupta, and I’m the Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and Social Justice at Parsons School of Design. I’m a white-appearing Indian woman with platinum blond hair and fair skin and violet eyes. And I’m wearing a black dress and a golden necklace. And today we are talking about three different sustainable, renewable leathers that are made out of natural materials like plants and kombucha tea.

Ahmad: Hello, I am Ahmad Abbasi. I am a researcher at Parsons Healthy Material Lab, and this is where we are right now. I am a white-appearing male with a bald head and a gray shirt. Yeah, we will be talking about three kinds of leather that we have at our Healthy Material Lab. And we will talk about why they are healthy and what they could be used for.

Sugandha: It is edible because it’s made out of an edible material, which is kombucha tea. It is very soft and malleable. And an interesting thing about this material is that it can melt with heat, because it is made with fermentation and it doesn’t have any coating on it, it’s natural. Do you want to talk about the circularity of this material?

Ahmad: Yeah. As you mentioned that it, it melts with temperature so that doesn’t make it durable, but that means it’s compostable or it’s biodegradable. So that, that adds to the sustainability or circularity of the product. And because it’s made of bio materials. So, yeah, that’s how we consider it healthy.

Sugandha: And it doesn’t require any kind of emissions of gases, so it doesn’t have any big carbon footprint. You would usually just make a big vat of the tea with fructose and then let it mold and then dry that to make this leather. In fact, in some of the areas of this leather you can even feel the bumps or the bubbles trapped inside it. So it’s a really fascinating material to work with. And what’s really interesting about it is that researchers have also used interesting medicines to inject in these kinds of leathers to also emulate the medicinal aspects of materials that we can wear on, on our bodies. So next we would like to talk about rhubarb leather. It is made out of rhubarb, which is…you want to elaborate on that?

Ahmad: It’s made out of protein. So protein fibers and yeah, it’s like, you can say like synthetic leather, but it’s made of healthy materials. We…we include labels in our libraries so researchers and students can come and read descriptions about the materials and what it’s used for.

Sugandha: And also this material looks just like…and just like a leather hide. So it has a tan color and it has a soft surface at the back, kind of like suede, but it’s maybe a little more rough than suede to touch and very smooth on the surface. And unlike natural animal leather, it is not as flowy or drapey. It does not have any stretch. So this is the second leather. And just so you know, rhubarb is a material that’s also used for making natural dyes. So it’s fascinating that you can also get this kind of leather out of it that can be applied in different materials, like bags or even belts, etc. And last but not the least, we would like to talk about mushroom leather.

Ahmad: Yeah, yeah. Mushroom or mycelium leather. It’s…it feels like foam a little bit. It’s usually not used in fashion, but used in construction tiling and insulation. It has a brown color. And yeah, as I said, has a foamy texture. Interesting thing about mycelium: it could be used in a wide range of products, not just leather, but in different applications as packaging or as furniture. And they take different shapes and forms.

Sugandha: And it also is interesting because it has a lot of marks, natural marks and bumps and dents on it. It’s very…cozy. Feeling like it has, it’s soft but you can also like kind of pinch it a little bit or press it a little bit, and it almost leaves kind of an indent. And it also just resembles a little bit of wood grain texture on the surface because it’s not even colored. There’s unevenness of the hues throughout it. It’s quite strong. It’s not stretchable, it’s very stiff material, but it’s very, very soft. And it has a lot of structure in it. So that’s really interesting about it. It’s very structured. So that’s our little insight about these natural leathers. And you can come to Healthy Materials Lab to check these materials out to see what they feel like, and experience them and touch them.

Ahmad: I’d like to add that mycelium is rapidly growing and easy to grow. So that also adds to the sustainability. So you can grow the mycelium, create the product, and at the end of life, just recycle the mycelium. Maybe use it for growing new mushrooms or mycelium for other products. And yeah, we can visit the Healthy Material Library. It has a wide range of materials and products, and textiles and construction and plastic–bioplastics. Which can help designers get an idea of what are available options to use in their designs.