From windows to wall art, hospitals use virtual reality to design more inclusive rooms for kids
BERKELEY, Calif. — For many young patients, harsh lights, bare walls, and windows facing parking lots or brick buildings make already painful hospital visits more unpleasant, stoking fear and uncertainty instead of hope. Often, those patients say, it makes recovery harder.
Their perspectives — historically overlooked in hospital design — are at the heart of a budding movement to make architecture more inclusive for the people who actually spend time there. Hospital groups like UCSF Benioff Children’s and Boston Children’s are exploring ways to fold young patients’ feedback into hospital design, like the color of walls and the placement of windows, art, and couches.
