Habitar los hospitalesel bienestar más allá del confort

Abstract

To inhabit a hospital is an experience that involves several types of users, as in- and outpatients, accompanying people, staff, students, suppliers, visitors and other support services employees. New concepts related to healthcare affect directly the hospital’s architecture. They take into consideration that inpatients’ healing process is closely related to space appropriation. Therefore, hospital’s architecture should be rooted in the principles of human scale, material warmth and deep connections to site, avoiding anonimous impersonal buildings. Some design strategies foster emotional stability and prevent any sense of isolation by connecting indoor and outdoor spaces and promoting human relations. Place-making will be achieved by designing common spaces where cultural, leisure and formative activities can be developed. Some devices can also help the users’ active control of the environmental conditions. In short, architectural design should reinforce the sense of place to feel ‘home away from home’.