The Power of Therapeutic EnvironmentsHealing

Bringing the benefits of nature to those who need it the most

By: Sandra Woodall, FRIBA, FRSA, AoU Design Director: tangramMENA

With an ecophilosophy approach to design, tangram architects and designers have long been advocates of treating buildings as living organisms, and of creating spaces that flow seamlessly from inside to out.

While the biophilic design movement continues to expand globally and the positive effectives on our health are becoming well known, there remains an urgent need to rebalance the damaging effects that our current way of living has brought upon our natural environment. Nowhere is this more critical than in the design of hospitals and healthcare facilities, the environments that are tasked with improving people’s health and wellbeing.

Green House Gas emissions from hospital facilities are 2.5 times more than any similar sized commercial building, according to studies. 6% of which is made up of nitrous oxide, a toxic gas 300 times more destructive to the environment than carbon dioxide and determined to be at a critical level by the World Health Organisation, as a major factor creating poor air quality and one which increases cardiovascular and respiratory disease which can reduce quality of life and can lower life expectancy. Ironically, the buildings that we visit as patients to make us better, are the very ones that are unintentionally contributing more than any other to many of our own actual health issues.

Research shows that well designed healthcare environments can reduce patients stress and anxiety, accelerate recovery, reduce lengths of inpatient stays and medication use, along with promoting an improved sense of well-being, and an improved patient outcome. Staff and visitor experiences are enriched, satisfaction and productivity rates increase, and staff recruitment and retention is also enhanced.

Tangram and its founders have over five decades of experience in creating healing environments that embed nurturing and therapeutic effects across the world, and nowhere more critical than this latest hospital scheme to hit site in North Africa, through their locally based studio tangramSARL. The use of natural light was paramount in the design to create a calming interior design, improve internal air quality and comfort levels that include noise reduction were all combined with the psychology of colour, textures and the inclusion of the building at one with nature, both internally and externally. Making hospitals healthier places to stay, visit and work in.

This project forms the first facility in the newly established, nationwide cancer care programme. It provides the Government’s first medical cyclotron facility for a new nuclear medicine network, and the first stem cell transplant unit in the country, and despite the complexities involved in designing notoriously energy and water demanding building typologies such as this, we were able to demonstrate the possibilities for the future in both healthcare delivery and environmental sustainability.

Our new Women and Children’s Cancer Care facility is designed to promote a healing environment. Nature is integrated within the building and forms an essential extension to the patient and staff spaces. The hospital is located on the outskirts of the forest of Zeralda at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, which inspired and gave guidance for landscaping and natural materials usage throughout.

Colours, textures, and interior design supports ease of wayfinding to the departments for patients and visitors, and infection control solutions incorporate UV management systems and advanced air filtration technology. All within an internal environment designed to reflect contemporary healthcare delivery models.

An atrium is carved out of the main entrance hall to bring in natural light to the public waiting spaces below, this is supplemented internally by a circadian lighting system in the depths of the nuclear medicine department, that delivers “cool” blue light during the day and transitions to “warm,” low-intensity light in the evening that reinforces natural healthy rhythms, keeping staff in tune with necessary natural rhythms of light wavelengths throughout the day or night, speeding up patient recovery time.

A winter garden with embedded paediatric isolation pods was incorporated with live plantings from the nearby forests of evergreen oak, Aleppo pine and cedar, which maximise the therapeutic healing environment. Patients could access the garden if well enough or enjoy views of the forest from the calming and uplifting environment of their pod. The areas is covered with forest vegetation, including Algerian Fir, Saharan Cypress, Algerian Peony and Desert Rose stone, sourced from the east of the country and typical of the vernacular was bonded with gypsum mortar joints, prepared from the locally sourced Tafza stone.

By providing patients with authentic connections to nature by opting for more natural building materials, installing plant life, visual and auditory connections to moving water, and other sensory stimuli we can provide direct environmental links for patients, visitors, and staff members, thereby contributing to the healing process.