Interdisciplinary approach to evaluate environmental users’ perceived restoration in hospital public spaces

The issue of public spaces in hospitals is very debated today: the direction taken by a few decades is to implement these spaces giving them a humanization feature to promote the well-being of patients and staff. Architectural trends have developed around the creation of halls, mostly glazed, with more volumes appearing, and large dimensions. The importance of restorative spaces as a mediator factor for health outcomes among the users is increasingly recognized. The paper assess the relationship between the quality of hospital's public spaces expressed in terms of accessibility and visibility of art and greenery and users' restorative experiences; highlights how physical environment may promote health and wellbeing of patients and staff/user in the Santa Maria Nuova hospital in Florence (IT)