Abstract

Healthcare facilities are often places of intense stress for all occupants. Patients, families, and caregivers experience psychological and physical challenges during diagnostics, procedures, caregiving and care receiving. Advocates of sustainable design such as the Green Guide for Health Care recommend that designers of healthcare facilities provide “places of respite” where occupants of the facility may go to recharge and refocus. Awarding a sustainable design credit for designing places of respite where occupants may access and experience daylight and landscape views, the Green Guide asserts that well-designed and programmed places of respite are crucial in “defining a supportive, high performance healing environment with proven effects on patient, family, physician, and staff well-being and improved clinical outcomes” (Green Guide for Health Care, 2005, 6-39). Places of respite may take shape in a variety of forms, such as healing gardens, chapels, lounges, cafeterias, or grieving areas, and serve different occupant populations within the healthcare facility. This paper examines the importance of places of respite in sustainable as well as conventional healthcare facilities, and discusses design recommendations for creating restorative and healing experiences in these key spaces.