- Title
- Atmospheric inclusiveness: creating a coherent and relatable sense of place for a children’s hospital
- Creator
- McLaughlan, Rebecca; Willis, Julie
- Relation
- The Journal of Architecture Vol. 26, Issue 8, p. 1197-1218
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2021.1993964
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- The atmosphere of a paediatric hospital has been shown to impact a patient’s degree of comfort and their willingness to return for ongoing treatment. Research cautions against creating environments that appear too childish, and thus risk alienating young adults. Yet, there is little advice to assist designers in delivering design responses that appeal to a patient cohort that can range from new-borns to young adults. Here, we propose the concept of atmospheric inclusiveness as a critical design aspiration for the construction of paediatric hospitals and present a contemporary facility that achieves this. Within a mixed-methods study conducted at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, data gathered from 246 patients, aged four to nineteen years old, pointed to a high level of atmospheric inclusiveness. This prompted follow-up interviews with the architects to understand the relationship between this positive reception and the design strategies employed to facilitate it. While critically informed by our broader project findings, this article primarily reports data obtained within twenty-five photo-response interviews with patients, five initial interviews with architects, and a follow-up group interview. Taken together, this data enables a richer understanding of the elements that contribute to the positive reception of this hospital and, importantly, the design strategies employed to achieve it.
- Subject
- paediatric hospital; atmospheric inclusiveness; mixed-methods study; design strategies
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle}
- Identifier
- uon:49813
- Identifier
- ISSN:1360-2365
- Language
- eng
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