Il progetto degli ambienti di cura: spazi e tecnologie di inclusione.

Health is a fundamental right, it concerns everyone and is essential for reducing inequalities. Architects have the responsibility to promote inclusion through equal accessibility of healthcare facilities for all people, regardless of age, gender, origin, social, economic and cultural background, physical and mental conditions, and any conditions of fragility (e.g., children or adolescents, women, the elderly, mental health, sensory disorders, end of life, etc.). What does it mean to design for health and to design for inclusion in healthcare environments? Starting from the studies which showed the influence of the environment on health, this volume intends to highlight the role of the sensory and perceptual qualities of the environment to transform people's experience of care and promote well-being and inclusion in the social and healthy community. Sensory design is based on the primary senses and how they affect the perception, the relationship and interaction between humans and the environment. Everything we feel, perceive, understand and learn comes to us through our senses, which are the basis of psycho-social and environmental well-being. Considering the different ways in which each of us perceives things, sensory perception is also at the root of all the diversity that makes up the broad spectrum of the human population. In this volume, I have therefore tried to explain what attention to sensory perception means to me in order to promote inclusion in healthcare settings, also providing an overview of the research I have undertaken over the years, a research journey which has given me the opportunity to learn what it means to design for people who live in healthcare facilities, to investigate their specific needs, and to use co-design tools to involve them directly in the design process. The volume is divided into three main sections: theory, experience and practice. The first section aims at introducing the relationship between inclusive design and sensory design in the healthcare environments and deals with the theories, approaches and design strategies that enable and promote inclusion from the point of view of perception, psychological comfort and interactions with the environment. Therefore, inclusion is not only promoted through functionality, urban and regional location of facilities and the layout of their spaces, but also by paying attention to the different ways of “perceiving” and “feeling” spaces. This approach to design has been developed in different areas of intervention: the integration of art and nature in the architecture to promote restoration by senses; the role of perception in spatial orientation strategies to self-determine people by considering all their different sensory needs; the design of the soundscape to promote comfort; the necessity of a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach, involving people who live in the healthcare spaces, to improve knowledge into the design process. The second section collects, analyses and describes some best practices of healthcare spaces, chosen from among those created in Europe over the last twenty years, which present innovative solutions in the field of inclusion in terms of sensory design, seeking to capture different examples in relation to their location and culture, the type of building, the users they are aimed at and the particular features of the solutions proposed. This chapter is intended to be a personal journey through beautiful and inclusive healthcare buildings, starting from studying, reading scientific papers, books or articles on the web, going on by travelling and visiting different buildings, and meeting architects and designers who conceived the projects. The focus was not on “special” solutions, but on inclusive places that took fragility into account, proposing different scenarios based on multisensory experiences. Projects were analysed on different scales, from “creating an atmosphere” to transforming a space or room, designing a department, or even an entire building: Sight & Sound Centre, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), London, UK; Helsinki Children's Hospital, Finland; SJD Cancer Center, Barcelona, Spain; Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen (SDCC), Denmark; Nordjyske stemninger (Moods of Northern Jutland), Sensory Delivery Room, North Jutland Regional Hospital in Hjørring (RHN), Denmark; Inclusive architecture for childbirth: Natural Birth Unit, Hospital Universitario HM Nuevo Belén, Madrid, Spain; Two Swedish models of local healthcare facilities to include citizens: Lindesberg Health Center and Angereds Närsjukhus, Sweden; REHAB, Clinic for Neurorehabilitation and Paraplegiology, Basel, Switzerland. Finally, the third section presents an interior design experience that I conducted at the Salus Pueri Children’s Hospital in Padua, aimed at creating an inclusive environment using solutions that take into account the sensory perception of young patients and their families. The Salus Pueri - Crescere La Vita Foundation has committed a Project of Humanisation of the Children's Hospital to DU IT s.r.l., with the collaboration of prof.ssa Maria Chiara Torricelli and prof. Paolo Felli. The project has developed design solutions compatible with the architectural-executive project under construction to allow the future hospital to satisfy psychological, inclusive and social needs of users. The Project of Humanisation was developed collaboratively, with the involvement of all stakeholders in a multidisciplinary working group, starting in May 2023 and beginning the construction in 2025. The aim of the project was to structure an inclusive path for patients arriving at the hospital and their families, involving everyone in a journey of discovery and sensory exploration, where they can positively distract themselves and continue their lives, by playing and learning together.