Ocean Medical Center is a community-based hospital serving the Jersey shore. The Hirair and Anna Hovnanian Emergency Care Center represents the Center’s most recent efforts to improve emergency care with a relocated and expanded Emergency Department. The landscape concept draws upon nature’s restorative qualities to address the sense of vulnerability and isolation that comes with illness and crisis. The design addresses the complexity of individual experience to provide opportunities for each user to engage with nature in their own way, at their own pace and on their own terms. Offering a place to pause, pass thru and view from key arrival and destination points, the garden can be experienced directly or indirectly, for a moment’s pause or a more lengthy stay. Design and material choices strengthen a sense of connection and engagement to place and time. The gently sweeping “fluid” forms of the spaces and the selection of native plants draw upon the familiar nearby shoreline to provide a soothing ambiance, seasonal highlights and subtle interest throughout the year. Groves of multi-stem native trees act as a natural screen providing shade and vertical interest. Waves of native grasses shift with the winds. The arrangement provides a variety of views of nature from the surrounding buildings. Seating areas are flexible and form breakout areas for respite or quiet activities.