Benefiting from the Outdoor Environment: How to design (health)care facilities’ in- and outdoor spaces to contribute to end-users’ physical and mental health and well-being
Promotor: Margo Annemans
Co-promotor: Els De Vos
Interacting with the outdoor environment has a positive impact on people’s physical and mental health and well-being. Nevertheless, (health)care facilities are usually not designed for patients, residents, visitors, and staff to fully benefit from the opportunity to experience and use the outdoor environment. Physical, mental, and organizational obstacles impact on their interaction with the outdoor environment. These obstacles often relate to the design of in- and outdoor interior spaces, with the term “interior” referring to “with building qualities related to human dimensions and conditions.” Those involved in designing interior spaces thus hold a major responsibility in creating them in such a way that they benefit patients’, residents’, visitors’ and staff’s health and well-being. A combination of design concepts that highlight the role of interior spaces in supporting patients’, residents’, visitors’, and staff’s interaction with the outdoor environment, and strategies on how to implement these concepts in designing healthcare facilities are needed. Therefore, this project aims to investigate how to design (health)care facilities’ in- and outdoor interior spaces to allow patients, residents, visitors, and staff to optimally benefit from the outdoor environment, and as such to contribute to their physical and mental health and well-being.
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