Children's Environments

Anyone involved with the design of healthcare environments, particularly those to be used by children and adolescents, should review the case study at the website below, which focuses on a children’s hospital in Sydney, Australia.  By studying children and adolescents in the hospital, the researchers “identified a range of factors key to improving their experience in the healthcare environment.”  Their report is too rich to adequately summarize in a posting here.

Recent research links traveling through doorways and forgetting.  Researchers linked passing through doorways with forgetting thoughts, decisions, and actions.

Costa investigated the tendency of people to sit in the same seat each time they are in a public space.  His research was conducted in academic buildings, but it is applicable in a range of other settings such as workplace conference rooms.  As Costa states, “students choose the same seat over time in university classrooms.

Recent research indicates that brief, brisk (but not running) walks can enhance our ability to remember things.  Designers can respond to this research by creating galleries and similar spaces which allow people to walk quickly (without running) immediately before doing tasks requiring memory.  Salas and his colleagues found that “individuals can gain a memory advantage from a 10-minute walk before studying.”  Study participants walked down several flights o

Brown and Cole completed post-occupancy analyses of two Canadian buildings (one green, one conventionally designed) to learn more about occupant comfort in buildings and comfort related behaviors. Green building design generally requires people in the structures to take an active role in maintaining their own physical comfort.  They may need to open and close window blinds, for example.  Often, people in conventionally designed structures do not play as active a role in making their environments physically comfortable.