Purpose The purpose of the study is to identify if the design of the non-clinical spaces of hospitals, particularly the waiting areas, is considered equally important in the healing process as the clinical areas by regulators. Background There is a growing body of research about evidence-based design elements and their impact on wellbeing in healthcare facilities but the majority of the studies are focused on the clinical spaces. The waiting area is an indispensable part of the healthcare experience, acts as a priming experience to patients who often have negative feelings as a response to stress. Methods An analysis and juxtaposition of three countries guidelines namely the UK; Health Building Note 00-01 General design guidance for healthcare buildings, USA; guidelines for design and construction of hospital and healthcare facilities and Australia: Australasian Health Facility Guidelines under the scope of specific evidence-based design features used as a method to demonstrate the consideration given to the design of waiting spaces. Results There is a range of information offered through the different guidelines, with the UK being the most inclusive, Australia is limited to functional requirements and the USA ignores the waiting spaces design in the guidelines of healthcare facilities. Conclusions Guidelines are based on the functionality of waiting areas and do not introduce enough therapeutic features. Actions to improve them could be beneficial for architects during the design process and consequently for waiting areas environment and patients wellbeing.

The increasing number of older adults and the ones needing 24-hour assistance and hence liv-ing in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) has led to the development of well-being models that acknowledge the environment as an important factor the influences well-being. Acknowledging this importance, numerous studies on the effects of the environment in LTCFs on well-being among older residents have enriched the knowledge on environmental variables affecting well-being. These studies have yielded conflicting results on topics such as the recommended hallway shape and optimal nursing-station position. Moreover, complying environmental as-sessment tools that rely on different amounts and combinations of the researched variables were formed. Most of these tools assess the variables in a dichotomous manner (either the var-iable is present or not); thus, the significance and weight of each variable are overlooked. A need for an additional quantitative measurement tool led to the development of the Psy-cho-Social Evaluation Tool (PSET) (Rom et al., 2022), which measures the effect of the units’ physical layout on well-being. By analyzing architectural plans from 40 long-term care units with the PSET, the current study demonstrates how the effect of physical layout on well-being is re-lated to various variables in different domains. To demonstrate this, this paper focuses on con-flicting recommendations regarding hallway shape, which affects the overall unit layout during the design process. We argue that all physical layout variables related to well-being should be measured during the design process and viewed as a part of the bank of resources since one variable (like hallway shape) is not sufficient to predict how LTCF units support residents’ well-being.

Research investigates the design strategies of therapeutic architecture that create healing environments and their application in residential design to positively reinforce mental health of the general public. It investigates the current mental health context and role of modern society in the situation. Onset of COVID-19 further highlights the need of residential spaces to be conducive of a healthier life-style. Research explores evolution of therapeutic architecture in relation to the stigma around psychiatric patients, to understand how it can be translated to everyday life around the existing stigma of mental health problems. Literature review explores theories and models like therapeutic architecture, which all create healing environments. Study also investigates use of elements of design that resulted in healing environments previously, for insight of how these elements impact human psychology and physiology. Differing spatial needs of patients and non-patients is analyzed for therapeutic architecture to be translated to residential design appropriately. Literature case studies of existing healing designs show the strategies executed in their spaces. Surveys and interviews of psychiatrists and psychologists give first-hand information of what promotes healing of mentally ill patients. Online survey of sample group of 100 from general public gives insight into their mental health and how their current residential spaces promote or deter better health. Findings from research are used to formulate how current residential spaces can be better designed through the appropriate integration of therapeutic architecture, to positively reinforce the mental health of its residents and expose them to spaces that promote a healthy life.

During the pandemic period it became clear that the design and planning of our home and cities had an influence on dealing with the emergency at an individual and collective level, facing the limits of the physical and social body and of their way of life. The physical body was forced to ac-quire a new spatial dimension, a new prossemic. This has emphasized the difficulties of adapta-tion for those who every day, beyond the pandemic, have to deal with a different perception of the environment that surrounds them. Rethinking public spaces is therefore fundamental both as a process of inclusion for people with an atypical sensitivity but also as a form of empathic openness to meeting others. My PhD research focuses on the spaces where this double empathy can manifest itself, within therapeutic and residential structures for people with cognitive disa-bilities and mental disorders. The studies revealed the significant role of the transition spaces between inside and outside, home and city, cities and places of care, as places of encounter be-tween therapy and society. Threshold spaces, shelter and rest, such as entrance, passage and waiting area become fundamental for people who live an atypical sensory experience with the environment, such as places and times of physical and social adaptation. Reflecting on thera-peutic design we could imagine new forms of proximity and a redistribution of care services that would guarantee different degrees of integration according to individual needs, considering de-ficiencies, as they are understood, as mere differences, manifestations of otherness.