Autism-friendly public landscape architecture

Despite the importance of public urban green spaces for public health, traditionally marginalised groups may have limited access to them. This article focuses on the specific marginalised group of people with autism, a growing societal group that is often excluded from the use of public urban green spaces. The existing literature on autism-friendly outdoor environments is limited. Based on the literature and as a starting point for further research on the topic, we suggest the nine design aspects of autism-friendly public landscape architecture as an approach to redesign existing UGS for people with autism. The literature review formed part of a research project which also involved a three-year case study (2019–2022) of a design intervention in a UGS in Malmö, Sweden, where the local authorities redesigned part of a UGS to better meet the needs of people with autism. The resulting intervention was called ‘The Peaceful Path’. Here, we explore the practical relevance of the nine design aspects identified in the literature by assessing whether these aspects are aligned with those that were employed by practitioners in the Malmö case to create a more autism-friendly UGS. This is done to improve understanding of how the needs of people with autism can be accommodated in a UGS. Further studies of the nine aspects and their operationalisation are necessary to explore how autism-friendly public urban green spaces differ from private gardens, as well as the more extensively studied indoor environments. Additionally, more knowledge is needed on how to operationalise the nine identified aspects to make UGS more autism-friendly, and how this implementation is affected by cultural, geographical and local contextual factors. Our findings may offer guidance to planners and managers seeking to make public urban green spaces more autism-friendly.