Design guidelines for healing gardens in the general hospital

Quying Wang; Julia Nerantzia Tzortzi

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1288586

Design guidelines for healing gardens in the general hospital

Front Public Health. 2023 Dec 1:11:1288586. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1288586. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Quying Wang¹, Julia Nerantzia Tzortzi¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.

Abstract

Introduction: Despite being recognized as a cost-effective method to enhance physical and mental health, Healing Gardens remain insufficiently popularized in outdoor spaces of hospitals. This paper aims to introduce a new perspective and offer guidelines for their implementation within general hospitals.

Methods: A methodology is proposed for formulating hospital-specific guidelines, encompassing the extraction of successful Healing Garden features from case studies, definition of key components grounded in theoretical frameworks, validation of essential features through user questionnaires, and comprehensive site analyses.

Results: The methodology was applied in a case study at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan. This research presents a novel perspective and robust methodology for implementing Healing Gardens in general hospital settings, potentially improving physical and mental health in a cost-efficient manner.

Discussion: This work aims to encourage the adoption of Healing Gardens as preventive medical tools in more healthcare settings. By providing a comprehensive methodology and a case study illustration, this research endeavors to stimulate broader acceptance and utilization of Healing Gardens in healthcare environments.

Keywords: Wuhan; guidelines; healing garden; hospital; rehabilitation effect.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Gardening
Hospitals, General*
Mental Health*
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was jointly supported by the state-sponsored scholarship program provided by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (No. 202107820002), and European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 872931.