Spaces of Welfare

Description

Healing Architecture and the Crisis of Care

Healing architecture is a term for the design of spaces that are intended to therapeutically support the healing of patients and promote stress-reducing environments for all users. Both as a slogan and a label for evidence-based design methods, the term is typically used affirmatively across the landscape of academic literature, policy papers, popular journals and mainstream media.

In this paper, I explore the prevalent idea of healing architecture in contemporary Danish hospital architecture through the case of a multisensorial delivery room, where the architectural environment is designed to care for the woman in labor. Next, I highlight a few important historical shifts in the hospital system. Finally, I turn from slogan to symptom and suggest that healing architecture plays a role as a proxy caregiver for the welfare state under current economical conditions.

Period	7 May 2021
Event type	Conference
Location	København, DenmarkShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International