From Anna Evangeli, Deputy Editor, Health and Medicine at The Conversation:
In hospitals, design can make the difference between life and death.
Good design helps us feel welcome and safe, enough to stick around to see the doctor. It helps distract, socialise and relax us during times of stress and uncertainty. It helps us navigate the system, literally guiding us through spaces, prompting us to seek help.
Our Designing Hospitals series, which we launched this week, explores the many ways we interact with hospital architecture, and how it affects us.
We chart the history of hospital design, from the dirt-floor huts of colonial times through to the “shopping mall” style of today.
We explore how hospital design affects mental health and well-being, particularly for children and young people.
Finally, we look at how we can better design hospitals for Indigenous Australians.
