Hospital Ward Architecture

The role of the architectural design of wards which is responsive to patients’ preferences and expectations is an important contribution to the design of a modern hospital. In particular patient''s privacy is known to be important for patient''s physical mental emotional and spiritual well-being. However little is known about the relationship between the spatial structure of hospital wards and patient preferences for privacy. This book presents a multi-angle insight into the relationship between hospital ward design and aspects of visual privacy as a design criterion within the context of guidelines on ward design and architects’ priorities. It involves three stakeholders: patients experts and architects. In addition to the empirical work presented the book provides a review of hospital design with a focus on ward architecture documents hospital design development in the UK analysises privacy theories and critically discusses Space Syntax theory. The book uses a rigorous combination of methods making it of interest to architects environmental psychologists facility managers healthcare estates regulators and researchers concerned with healthcare buildings.