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FOCUSING ON CLINICS: HOW CAN HEALTH-CARE-FACILITY DESIGN IMPROVE MEDICAL OUTCOMES AND GENERAL WELL-BEING?
Even when we're well, radiant, sunlit interiors with garden or landscape views tend to make us feel better than hermetic, coldly institutional places. It's hardly a lofty concept. And the logic goes, if the surroundings enhance our mind-set, increasing relaxation and reducing stress, then our physical condition--our health and healing processes--will benefit. This thinking rests firmly on twin principles of intuition and experience.
But in the 1980s, behavioral scientist Roger S. Ulrich put this empirical concept under the lens of scientific scrutiny. In a landmark study, he found that surgical patients overlooking a verdant landscape required shorter hospital stays, fewer narcotics, and less nursing care than patients, just across the hall, with brick-wall views. Despite variables in every illness and individual, researchers have rigorously built...