Vitality and nature in psychiatric spaces: Challenges and prospects for ‘healing architecture’ in the design of inpatient mental health environments

Architects’ Perception of Quality of Life—Impact, Practice, and Barriers

“…Our results revealed that perceptions of QoL among architects are linked to three primary dimensions: health, a sense of harmony, and the experience of enchantment. In particular, the health dimensions have already been adequately covered in other studies [17,35,36,42], with most studies using self-reported surveys as the methodology [35,36,42]. An increasing number of studies on residential housing environments, offering a similar emphasis to that of the current study, have focused on the importance of a sense of harmony [14,18,43,44].…”

“…However, over the past few decades, there has been a shift in the overall perception of QoL, and numerous studies have emphasized the significance of built environments (both indoor and outdoor) in determining QoL [8][9][10][11][12], as the built environment can stimulate a safe environment; provide income opportunities; and support health, education, and recreation [2]. Lots of previous research has been carried out on the built environment and QoL in institutional settings with older or vulnerable user groups [13][14][15][16][17]. There is also a substantial amount of research addressing the notion of sustainable development and its relationship with QoL on macro levels (theoretical and political), e.g., for municipalities, communities, and neighborhoods [1,4,5,9,11,18].…”