Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital is an 82-bed physical medicine and rehabilitation hospital located on Chicago's West Side; in fall 2003, landscape architects Douglas Hill Associates, Inc., completed the facility's 10,000-square-foot therapeutic rooftop garden. This project was funded with a $400,000 grant from the City of Chicago's Heat Island Reduction Initiative and approximately $80,000 from private donors.

For many of the patients visiting Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital's rooftop garden, it is their first time outside of an institutional setting in months. Visitors are greeted by spectacular floral displays and the soothing sound of running water from a waterfall that feeds a 50-foot pebble-lined stream. The garden also features plenty of shaded seating areas, a children's playground lined with soft rubber tiles, and a basketball half-court. Patients' response to this experience is almost always one of intense excitement; some are speechless and later report leaving the garden with a renewed sense of optimism and motivation. In this way, daily access to nature makes the rehabilitation process easier for the patients at Schwab.

The rooftop garden is a symbol of Schwab's progressive approach to healthcare. Therapists at Schwab use the space as a peaceful and interactive environment for treating patients. Every feature of the garden was designed to be accessible to people with and without disabilities. All of the gardening space was designed to have portions within reach of a wheelchair, including the stream.

The Schwab rooftop garden classifies as an "intensive rooftop garden," there is more than 2,000 square feet of planting space on the rooftop. Intensive rooftop gardens do add a lot of weight to a roof but, fortunately, structural improvements were not needed in this case because the building was designed and built to support an additional floor. This project was designed to be environmentally friendly. Since the rooftop garden's completion, the building has increased efficiency and the plants actually help to decrease air pollution, a concern in our urban location.

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