The garden visitor experience

ABSTRACT Based on a systematic data base search this paper provides a comprehensive survey of empirical research on garden visitor experiences, arguing that prevalent studies in garden tourism, psychology and education shed little light on the esthetic experience of gardens as cultural artifacts. Gibson’s transdisciplinary concept of ‘affordance’ is therefore used to reinterpret findings from the social sciences in light of landscape design and cultural analysis. The paper addresses how horticultural designs afford visitors to move through landscapes, to perceive and sense plant displays and to create meaning through bodily engagement. It furthermore shows, how media technologies such as mobile guides afford visitors to engage the garden through their specific material and operational design. As a result, the paper introduces a transdisciplinary model of the garden visitor experience that integrates bodily perception and conceptual understanding. Accordingly, the deliberate design of interpretative media is identified as a key agenda for visitor engagement.