From Admission to Discharge: Designing Biophilic, Salutogenic + Eudemonic Hospital Spaces in a Post-pandemic World

This online webinar was hosted by the European Union Health Property Network on 4 September 2020. The theme of the session was: Relocate, Repurpose, Reorganize – The hospital response to the pandemic challenge. In our presentation we defined biophilic, salutogenic and eudemonic architecture, and looked at examples of these approaches in contemporary Australian and historic health facilities within Australia and overseas. We understand that all the presentations will be available online and this record will be updated with the link when it is shared with us. At the webinar, we presented an outline of our current research project. This project is looking at improving entrances and exits to hospitals and healthcare facilities. Our ethics is approved and our next step will be interviews with selected clinical staff and others to understand how the design of their working areas assists or impedes the delivery of care. Our research has now further expanded to look at how COVID-19 is impacting on the use of these spaces and how this could affect the future design of entrance and exit areas in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. We are pursuing biophilic, salutogenic and eudemonic architectural approaches to the design of these essential facility spaces. Practical outcomes will include design suggestions for achieving improved workflows while providing patient friendly and supportive environments for all users. We recorded our presentation and you can access it from the YouTube link provided.