Abstract:
Hospitals and other healthcare facilities are where humans can experience some of the
most harmful and invasive surgeries and treatments, yet the only remedy that has been
concocted to address human recovery and healing is the use of very addictive and dangerous
opioids and narcotics. In order to combat this crisis, the architectural and medical professions
are finally beginning to push towards creating healthier environments through the integration
of biophilic design. Biophilic design offers the ability for our surrounding environments to
reflect, mimic and even integrate nature back into our lives, creating not only spaces that
humans can perform well in but also spaces that offer a multitude of health benefits. The goal
of this thesis inquiry is to push forward that research through the interrogation of shortcomings
found in the current standards used to design state of the art hospital settings while also
understanding how the patterns of biophilic design can help establish a new design framework
for creating healthier hospital spaces.
This process will begin by evaluating the combination of design strategies and
considerations used for designing patient recovery spaces. This will determine where the design
could incorporate a collection of the 14 patterns of biophilic design. The principles behind these
patterns will also be reviewed and examined in order to create a framework that describes
different ways the patterns can be applied to the space. From here, these elements will be set
up to be tested through the application of virtual reality (VR) and BIM software and reviewed
by a collection of doctors, nurses and patients in order to measure the overall effectiveness of
this new design standard. The testing conducted during this review process will be measured
through the HEART design evaluation matrix, which measures the happiness, engagement,
adoption, retention, and task success of the different elements of biophilic design when they
are applied to the space. This will ultimately create a new design standard that not only
describes the different ways biophilic design can be applied to patient recovery rooms but also
serve as the foundation for creating healthier hospital spaces aimed towards improving patient
recovery.
