"
"
‘Medical care cannot be separated from the buildings in which it is delivered. The quality of space in such buildings affects the outcome of medical care, and architectural design is thus an important part of the healing process.’
(Boubekri, 2008, pp6).
Referring to the insufficient documentation of past hospitals as healing environments and the majority being unsuitable for modern societies, the historical approach that can be applied to hospitals is
holistic healthcare: aiding the mind, body and spirit through a positive and health-encouraging built environment.
With 48% of survey participants, as the majority, stating they felt worse within an environment that is intended to have the opposite effect, it highlights a concern for hospital architecture and patient experience. The neuroscience and architecture unification is gradually improving the understanding of how architecture can form healing environments by justifying the long term benefits of healing architectural features during the planning phase, over initial expenses. As exemplified in the contrast between QMC and smaller establishments such as the Burrswood Hospital, it is possible for hospitals to be ‘poised between pragmatic and artistic architecture’ (Nickl and Nickl-Weller, 2013, pp161) and to ‘embrace the patient, family, and caregivers in a psycho-socially supportive therapeutic environment’ (Smith and Watkins, 2016). However, challenges arise in implementing healing spaces in existing hospitals, due to expenses and implications of facility closure.
The most important architectural elements for future healthcare architects and investors to consider are ‘adding features that enhance comfort and take into account the spiritual and social aspects of the patient’s life’ (Sternberg, 2009, pp239). Homeliness as an aesthetic deinstitutionalises hospital interiors and reduces environmental stressors through the fostering of normality and familiarity. Furthermore, the provision of a central, communal ‘heart’ acting as a core for social, familial and recreational activities, combined with access to smaller private spaces, would more easily accommodate spiritual and emotional uplift and the support necessary to recover. Referring to the ideology of designing hospitals that are not impersonal, it has been confirmed that a level of control over ones surroundings, such as lighting, ventilation and temperature, would assist healing.
Fundamentally, the adaptability of hospitals is becoming a necessity, however it can be argued that there is a subsequent loss of characterful, healing spaces in the process. Whilst it is accepted that architecture and design is subjective,
the reintroduction of consideration of the patient experience
can provide modern hospitals that ‘breaks with past typology’, such as modernist hospital institutions, and thus ‘form its own individual picture’ (Nickl and Nickl-Weller, 2007, Foreword pp3).
H O V E R O V E R M E
MIND
SPIRIT
BODY
A hospital environment, where one goes to recover from illness or injury, can, ironically, become an environmental stressor. Eradicating hospital stigma and stress can begin with a welcoming landscape and entrance, along with easy, innovative wayfinding to contribute to a therapeutic experience. Supporting Ulrich’s studies on the rehabilitative impact of nature, it was emphasised within primary research investigations with 80% of survey participants stating both views and access to nature would aid recovery and reduce stress.
FIG 114
FIG 115
FIG 116
FIG 117
HAYLEY MARCROFT
INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE | NTU
N0495471