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.