Creating healing environments: humanistic architecture and therapeutic design
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17465729200500031 |
| Pages | 48-52 |
| Author | Richard Mazuch,Rona Stephen |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Richard Mazuch and
Rona Stephen
Architects
Nightingale Associates
Correspondence to:
Rona Stephen
Nightingale Associates
Newman Street
London W1T 3EY
ronastephen@hotmail.com
OPINION
48 journal of public mental health
vol 4 • issue 4
© Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd
Humanistic architecture draws on
international research in the fields of
psychology and sociology, biology and
physiology into the effects of the
environment on health (for example,
Sommer & Wicker, 1991; Ulrich, 1991a; 1991b; 2001;
Zhdanova et al, 2001). It is the task of the humanistic
architect to translate this research into projects that
place the individuals inhabiting particular spaces at the
heart of the design process. Architects and designers are
rarely trained in methods of design specification that are
specific to healing environments. Traditional
approaches to architectural and design are therefore of
little use if architects are to reflect on how patients’
symptoms or behaviour might be affected by the
environments they inhabit, or to provide individualised
environments that might ameliorate specific health or
behaviour problems.
Nightingale Associates (NA) is a leading UK
architectural practice and the largest in Europe
specialising in healthcare, science and education. The
practice offers a fully integrated service, including
architectural and interior design, brief writing, strategic
and master planning, and landscape design. NA also has
a strong research and development department that
gathers international data and collaborates on research
projects with universities such as Sheffield, Kingston,
De Montfort and the Medical Architecture Research
Unit at London South Bank University. Our architects
actively engage with staff, clinicians and individual
patients; our designers research, interview and record
the emotional, physiological and physical symptoms of
individual patients in order to create optimal, evidence-
based healing environments. This level of interactivity
is a substantial departure from traditional practices of
healthcare design, and has been implemented on a
number of recent projects in the UK such as the
Rathgael adolescent regional secure care facility in
Bangor, Northern Ireland; West Park mental health
hospital, Darlington, and the personality disorder unit
at the East London and the City Mental Health Trust
Centre for Forensic Mental Health.
NA has also extensively reviewed and participated
in international research projects focused on healing
environments, and is currently involved in producing
guidelines and evidence-based methodologies for NHS
Estates on the planning and design of healthcare
environments. NHS Estates wishes to gather an
evidence base on the therapeutic value of good
healthcare environments in order to provide guidance
and support to NHS trusts on the design and
construction of health premises. The guidelines will
translate the evidence into practical advice in order to
identify and spread good practice.
Tracing causation of human behaviour is not easy.
The line between aggression precipitated by a sense of
injustice and aggression precipitated by mental illness is
not clear, and nor is the line between malingering and
mentally disturbed hostility. Sensory deprivation in
penal institutes implies a severe limitation to one or
more of the senses. It has been suggested that monotony
and boredom caused by enforced idleness, lack of variety
Creating healing
environments: humanistic
architecture and therapeutic
design
Humanistic architecture aims to place human welfare at the heart of the ar t and science of building
design and environmental management. In this article we aim to show how humanistic architecture
can contribute to public mental health and mental health promotion, using as an example our own
architectural and design practice, Nightingale Associates.Nightingale Associates aims to combine
psychotherapeutic methods with traditional architectural design to create healing healthcare
environments that, evidence shows,can enhance and support the care and treatment process.
Key words:
architecture
design
healthcare environment
sense sensitive
emotional mapping
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