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The Brook: Langdon Hospital
Dawlish
SUMMARY
A therapeutic landscape project for a specialist learning disabilities and autism unit at Langdon Hospital. Redbay designed a series of secure, restorative outdoor spaces that balance safety, sensory needs, acoustic containment, staff wellbeing and visual sensitivity.
LOCATION
Dawlish
CLIENT
NHS Trust
PARTNERS
Grainge Architects
SECTOR
Landscape Planning
COMPLETION:
May 2025
SERVICE TAGS
Concept Design & Masterplanning, Hard Landscape Design, Planting Design, Healthcare & education landscapes, Construction Detailing, Stakeholder engagement
Redbay was appointed to design the landscape for a new single-storey Learning Disabilities and Autism unit within the wider Langdon Hospital site. The brief was to integrate a highly specialist care facility into a well-treed setting while creating safe, restorative and carefully controlled outdoor environments for patients, staff and visitors.
Redbay developed the landscape strategy and therapeutic garden design, working alongside Grainge Architects and the wider project team. The work included boundary planting, acoustic and visual screening, access changes, sustainable drainage, meadow restoration, native tree planting and a series of tailored garden spaces designed around different patient and staff needs.
The project required a careful balance between safety, security, privacy, sensory experience and landscape quality. Outdoor spaces needed to be robust and controlled, while still offering meaningful opportunities for activity, calm, visual interest, decompression and connection with nature.
The site’s relationship with surrounding residential properties also created visual and acoustic sensitivity. Redbay needed to soften the architectural massing, protect neighbour privacy and provide boundary screening without making the unit feel closed off or overly institutional.
The completed landscape strategy created a series of specialist outdoor spaces, each designed for a particular use and level of sensory engagement. The activity garden supports physical engagement with a trampoline, swing, play hut, raised beds and safe surfacing, while the sensory integration garden offers carefully selected planting, secure boundaries and impact-absorbing ground treatment.
For moments of reduced stimulation, the de-escalation garden provides a deliberately calm environment with neutral tones and minimal visual input. A separate Zen garden acts as a visual-only landscape, bringing a calming view into internal spaces through raked gravel, rocks and simple planting forms.
The wider scheme also supports staff, visitors and the hospital setting. Visitor and staff gardens provide more private places for conversation, rest and decompression, while boundary planting, rain garden swales, meadow restoration and native tree planting help the building sit more comfortably within its landscape. The result is a therapeutic landscape that supports care, safety, wellbeing and site integration together.
