Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

The hospital physical environment can be a stressful place for both patients and their families, along with health care providers due to the ever-increasing number of technological devices and advanced treatment procedures that trigger physiological and psychological stress, such as annoyance, pain, sleep deprivation, anxiety, and other deleterious mental health-related issues. Subsequently, research on healthcare design and planning through evidence-based design (EBD) concept have highlighted a robust relationship between several environmental design factors and wellness. It is, therefore, imperative to look in-depth into some of these design attributes and their impact on patient and staff health experience. As such, adopting a more holistic design approach that fosters engagement with the natural environment, and incorporates nature sounds and views may help prevent mechanisms of stress ultimately leading to cost-effective solutions for improving the overall healthcare experience. This study explores the role of nature sounds and views and study their impacts from a positive health-related standpoint in healthcare milieus. It also investigates the concept, components, and designs of soundscape and landscape to achieve positive health outcomes. A qualitative research method was employed, and data were retrieved through secondary sources by searching various electronic databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, MEDLINE and Google). The findings suggest that sound and visual environments are beneficial for individuals’ physiological health and psychological well‐being, and therefore should be given explicit attention in planning and design decisions. Future directions into designing with online reality (VR) technologies to maximise treatment options with specific patients groups is also discussed.