Articles by subject

Join our mailing list to receive the 'Making Sense' newsletter directly into your email inbox.

Access

• The Access Chain - developed as part of our Evaluation Toolbox this is a tool for managers to understand the chain of events for a good visitor experience
• Access Outdoors - Sensory Trust's work with trails in Derbyshire
• Audience Development Plans - they can help you win funding, but how do you put one together and what are the ingredients for a successful one?
• Coming Soon: Two New Guides to Improve Outdoor Access - essential reading for managers and owners of heritage sites and other outdoor landscapes
• Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) - comments from key organisations
• Disabled Ramblers explore Cornwall 2006 - Wendy and Lynsey look at some of the benefits of getting disabled people and site managers together out in the elements
• Engagement at Quarry Bank Mill - The Sensory Trust has recently completed a round of training with the National Trust. The training consisted of developing a technique that could be easily employed by site staff in the National Trust to ensure their sites were as accessible as possible for their visitors

Community

• A sense of belonging - Malcolm Green describes a project to engage schools in a co-ordinated educational project on the River Tyne
• A sense of place - What sort of things can a community identify as a strength or having potential for development? A sense of place can often act as a uniting narrative, particularly for rural communities where narratives are strongly linked with the land.
• Beacon Project - Hazel Stuteley OBE tells the story of the Falmouth Estate's regeneration and the power of the community
• Historic memory in Valdediós - Simon Manfield talks of his work with the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica, locating and excavating mass graves from the Spanish Civil War and the effect of the work on the local communities.
• Mending broken communities: as easy as ABCD? - Hazel Stuteley and the Health Complexity Group launch Connecting Communities at the Sense of Place conference at Eden.
• Mosaics for the Beacon Resource Centre - hands on at the Falmouth Beacon estate
• New Ground - the beginning of a new partnership project investigating ways to use narrative and heritage to regenerate communities.
• Tales from Porth - place-based learning advocate Will Coleman has produced a CD ROM to introduce the Cornish language to children.
• TR14ers community dance team - Peter Whitbread-Abrutat writes about the TR14ers, a police-led community dance team of about 350 young people in the town of Camborne in Cornwall, UK.

Equality of experience

• Australian Sensory Trails Development Framework project - the Trust gives a talk to a new project based in Victoria, Australia and finds out about their work
• Discovery Bags at Pine Lodge - as part of the ongoing development and testing of our new engagement techniques we arranged a visit by students from Doubletrees special school to the Pine Lodge Gardens in St Austell.
• Engagement at Quarry Bank Mill - The Sensory Trust has recently completed a round of training with the National Trust. The training consisted of developing a technique that could be easily employed by site staff in the National Trust to ensure their sites were as accessible as possible for their visitors
• Engaging Through the Senses - design projects for sensory impairment
• Equality of Experience - quality of experience is as important as physical access if the spirit of the DDA is to be upheld
• Sensory-rich trails design framework published. The Australian sensory trail design framework which Sensory Trust contributed to is now available to download.
• 5, 9, 21, 53… how many senses? A Brief History of the Senses to demonstrate that exactly how many senses we have is unlikely to be agreed any time soon.

Healthcare and therapy

• Healthcare Environments - exploring the benefits of therapeutic outdoor environments
• Lipson Special Needs Unit - Designing their space
• More than a Room with a View - beneficial plant therapy for mental well being
• Reflections, projections and pinholes - a selection of images from the Bethlem Gallery
• Seicho School - Lynsey visits a residential care centre for people with Learning disabilities in Tokyo
• The Value of Landscaping on Health - Jane Stoneham talks about the therapeutic and social value of landscape at a seminar held by Architects for Health in association with the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation in London.
• When the Drugs don’t Work - A recent review ordered by the Department of Health in the UK on the use of anti-psychotic drugs on dementia sufferers states that as many as 144,000 people are being given the drugs unnecessarily causing an estimated 1,800 deaths each year. Could better care home environments help turn round this appalling state of affairs? We think so.

Information and interpretation

• Accessible Information : Layout and Language - the words we use
• Braille/Large Print Menu Trials - as shown at the Eden Project
• Design for the senses - the holistic approach to interpretation
• Eden Audio Guide - A CD and MP3 guide developed by the Eden guide team, Sensory Trust and RNIB
• Is your web site still in the dark? - web accessibility and you
• It is dangerous to stick your head out - the subtle messaging that can come, intentionally or unintentionally, from the words and pictures we choose to use.
• New information sheets and booklets - Sensory Trust is producing a series of handy information sheets and booklets aimed at people who own, manage or design outdoor spaces. The first batch are now available to download for free. That's right, free, because we love you.
• Sensory Trust recommends - stuck in the airport, bored by Brown and fed up of Follett? Sensory Trust recommends some holiday reading that might inspire you so much, you'll actually want to go back to work.
• ReDiscover - exciting work for the new Core building at the Eden Project
• Symbols for People with Learning Difficulties - pioneering the use of Widgits
• Wateraid Exhibit at Eden - access and interpretation
• Widgit Discover Packs - Sensory Trust works with Widgit in the development of the Discover Eden packs for the Eden Project

Inclusive design

• An Inclusive Approach - the way we work
• Designing for the 21st Century III, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Mike Westley reporting on the South American inclusive world
• Doubletrees School - Sensory Trust spends a day working with children at a school in Cornwall to redesign their outdoor space.
• Early Approach to Inclusive Design: the new Core building at Eden Project - Grimshaw architect Jerry Tate tells us why it's so imperative to consider inclusive design from the earliest planning stages
• Getting into Inclusive Design - Worthy? Dull? Us? Where can I sign up?
• Inclusive Design : Why Wouldn't You? - food for thought
• The Japanese Connection - looking at great examples of sensory and inclusive design in Osaka and Kyoto
• Seicho School - Lynsey visits a residential care centre for people with Learning disabilities in Tokyo
• Sensory Garden - what's that then? - to include or to exclude... a designers view
• Two Awards for Easy Access to Historic Landscapes. Sensory Trust publication wins two awards at the Landscape Institute Awards in London 2007

People and organisations

• A Day out with British Trust for Conservation Volunteers - we join a group of people with mixed learning difficulties to do some practical conservation
• Access Cornwall Areas - Disabled Ramblers trek through Cornwall
• Funder Profile: The Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales - one of our funders explains their current funding priorities
• Indigo Arts - a partner profile of this fantastic organisation which works with young adults with a range of learning difficulties
• Interview with an Eden Volunteer - Wendy Brewin talks to Jo Burgess about access for disabled people
• Remembering Jane Jacobs - outspoken critic of the planning establishment in the US, we remember the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities
• Tony Bradshaw - in memory of Professor Anthony Bradshaw FRS
• Unusual Likeness of Being Musical - Mick Beck, Sensory Trust Trustee and blind musician
• Work experience at Sensory HQ - a student from Fowey Community College explains a sensory week

Places

• Alnwick Gardens - A small tour around this visitor attraction
• Australian Study Trip - Wendy Brewin recounts some of her discoveries in the land downunder
• Australian Study Trip Part 2 - Wendy continues her Oz odyssey in Sydney and Brisbane.
• A Very Sensory Evening at Dunkelrestaurant Nocti Vagus, Berlin's Dark Restaurant
• Bryant Park, New York, USA - green space review
• Cleveland Botanical Garden - David Kamp, keynote speaker at the Sense of Place conference, talks about his recent work
• Glass Garden, New York - A Personal Testimony by Nancy Chambers
• Lanhydrock House - Sensory Trust holds an activity day at the National Trust's Lanhydrock House and Gardens.
• Milton Keynes Parks, UK - green space review
• Oizumi Ryokuchi Park, Osaka, Japan - green space review
• A River Runs Through Them: Parks in Melbourne - we review the old and the new in Australia
• Royal Schools for the Deaf Manchester, UK - green space review
• Seicho School - Lynsey visits a residential care centre for people with Learning disabilities in Tokyo
• A Sense of Peace at the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris - inspired by a talk at our conference we find vital sensory ingredients in one of the oldest cemeteries in Paris
• Sheffield Peace Gardens, UK - green space review
• Volunteer Sighted Guides - Cambridge Botanics offers guided tours for people with visual impairments.

Projects and conferences

• Awakening Senses - an award-winning consultation day run by Sensory Trust as part of the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) ‘Making a difference day’
• Capital Woodlands Project -the Trust to carry out key access reviews
• Capital Woodlands update. In 2005/2006 we were involved in the early stages of the Capital Woodlands Project, running community consultation sessions as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund bid for six ancient woodland sites around London. What has happened since?
• Connect - Thanks to funding from Lloyds TSB Foundation, Sensory Trust has started the Connect project that will run for the next three years and focus on access to the environment for people with learning disabilities and older disabled people
• The Green Flag Award Scheme: Inclusive Training - Sensory Trust provides important training for the judges
• If You Go Down to the Woods - involving people in the Capital Woodlands Project in London, part of a global initiative by Trees for Cities
• Inclusive Action Group - we have liftoff! - brief overview of the first meeting
• Kent Countryside Opportunities for Everyone - Stuart Mcleod, Senior Access Development Officer for Kent County Council talks about some exciting projects
• Making Sense? - our expansion and our work with the Eden Project
• New Projects - two more projects kick off at the Sensory Trust.
• Sense of Place conference review - a look back with a warm glow at our conference in June/July in Devon and Cornwall
• Sense of Place 2006 - a review of the conference held this June in Cornwall.
• Sensory Mapping - new ways of looking at (and sniffing at) spaces
• Stourhead Sensory Trail - Experience the gardens of Stourhead through sight, touch, smell and hearing
• Wheelchairs and Graffiti - custom paint jobs for wheelchairs at Eden

Public space

• Aiding and Abetting a Known Felon - Sensory Trust discovers that its work could be of dubious legality
• Ban's Best Friend - dog walkers as the regeneration avant garde
• Man Enjoys View From Bench - fear and urban public space
• Need for Public Spaces - how important gathering spaces are post September 11th
• Obvious Use of an Urban Park - Urban parks are too precious to be squandered by a single use or single interest group.
• Park Experience: holistic roots - using both the UK and the US as examples, just what is a park experience?
• Public Parks Keep Out conference overview - our joint venture with GreenSpace, held in Nov 2003 in Manchester.
• The Third Place - Lars asks, is a coffee machine commercial the last kick in the teeth for public spaces?

Sustainability

• Older People and Climate Change - Sensory Trust and the Eden Project are working with the Carnegie UK Trust on a project to help non-environmental groups engage with the social impacts of climate change and resource scarcity. This is a little preview of some of the action.
• Quality of life in urban centres, Argentina - Pablo Bullaude writes about new developments on the Asunción coastline
• Sensory Learning and the Environment - reducing the natural environment to the status of a leisure facility on a par with a swimming pool or skate park may well increase the emotional gulf between people and the environment. Discuss.
• Sustainability and New Urbanism - a bright future?
• Towards the Edge - Sensory Trust recently completed a series of consultation engagement sessions as part of the Eden Project's funding bid to the Big Lottery for their final big build; the Edge.
• Wrestling with leaning towers - Landlife's Richard Scott argues that creative conservation and ecological restoration are likely to become significantly more important in the near future, particularly to address the impacts of an increasingly urbanised and populated world.

Join our mailing list and we'll keep you up to date with our work.