10,000 Steps & Dementia Friendly Forest & Sensory Trail

Client:  Parks Victoria
Collaboration:  Roger Thomas & Vincent McDonald
Status:   Concept Completed June 2019. Construction completed July 2021

Forest Therapy Trail
The Dementia Friendly Forest and Sensory Trail is a 1.2km walk in the Woowookarung Regional Park in Ballarat. The Trail is a world-first, developed by Parks Victoria in partnership with the Bigger Hearts Dementia Alliance. The Trail is designed to be an accessible, inclusive and immersive experience; giving people with dementia an opportunity to connect with nature. Since opening in July 2021, the trail has attracted 12,500 visitors, including a choir performance and a monthly tai chi group for people with dementia. 

Anne Tudor, the co-founder of the Bigger Hearts Dementia Alliance (BHDA), had the idea of a dementia-friendly trail in the bush and Parks Victoria took up the challenge.  Together they formed a partnership to deliver this project, in line with Parks Victoria’s approach of ‘Healthy Parks, Healthy People’.

Our role in this project included consultation with Parks Victoria, stakeholders, and most importantly the dementia community to develop a reverse brief for the Trail; concept design, design development and documentation.  Alongside the consultation and design process, we developed a standard for dementia-friendly trails based on Dementia Australia guidelines.
We were very conscious of creating a safe and sensory-friendly environment on the Trail, with well-defined paths, accessible grades, spaces to retreat, rest or converse; minimise environmental factors that may trigger a stress response (light, noise, smell), and minimise visual clutter. The Trail's design is a light touch, responsive and sympathetic to the natural bushland setting. The main trail largely follows an old 4WD track to minimise damage to indigenous vegetation. We wanted to highlight and enhance the natural character and features of the site. 

The Trail is designed for everyone to enjoy – all ages and all abilities – whether in a wheelchair, on a bike or walking with a dog. It forms part of the 10,000 Steps Trail through the Woowookarung Regional Park. The vision of the BHDA and one of the goals of the Trail is to encourage the Ballarat community to be more dementia aware and dementia-friendly. Another initiative of the BHDA is the Green Scripts project. Green Scripts help to connect health workers and people with Dementia to activities that are likely to improve their physical, emotional and social wellbeing. The Trail is one of the activities that has been prescribed for the Ballarat community.

Photography: Gavin Nash, THLA