DESIGNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR HEALTHCARE:
THE RELATION BETWEEN DEMANDS OF PATIENTS AND REQUIREMENTS OF HOSPITALS

As cited in literature, hospitals have been one of the most important institutions throughout history, especially showing particular improvements and changes starting in 18th century till now. Since multifunctional facilities and specialized activities are taking place in those buildings; and both technological—medical—developments and demands of patients—their psychology and process in remedy— have impact on their design, they are more vulnerable to changes than any other type of buildings, and this results an elaborate consideration that how those spaces can be designed conscientiously for adaptation in future.

The relation between demands of users –efficiency needs of care providers and social psychological needs of patients-- and requirements of hospitals has become recently an important issue in healthcare facilities design. In several researches, it has been recognized that the quality of hospital design has impact not only on the healing process but also the efficiency of medical staff. For example, although in a circular-shaped inpatient care area, nurses working efficiency becomes higher than other types, patient privacy is disturbed.

This paper will cover the subject in general regarding those issues. Firstly, a general knowledge of healthcare architecture today will be presented together with the emphasis on the role of architects as problem solvers in efficient designs. Secondly, the conflict in demands of demands of users in healing environments and staff efficiency will be defined together with several research projects based on these topics; and finally, a discussion section will present the comparison of those researches with issues involving healing environment, patients’ needs and efficiency concerns in hospital design.