Effectiveness of architecture elements in Klang Valley hospitals

Abstract

Staff, visitors, and patients are extremely likely to suffer from stress in healthcare environments. Through natural environments like hospital gardens, high stress levels can be significantly neutralised to improve health and boost healing. First, this study is aimed at evaluating the perceived curative features of hospital gardens for prospective visitors and patients, as well as for staff. Second, the study focuses on providing recommendations for building new restorative gardens and transforming existing hospital gardens into curative types. In an online questionnaire, 411 respondents and 28 staff members from four  of Klang Valley hospitals were asked to rate four gardens from these hospitals in several workshops. With the aid of semantic differential (SD) and other psychological grading systems, the gardens were evaluated by respondents based on their restorative qualities and appearance. The restorative capacity of a hypothetical ideal hospital garden, which acted as a reference, was also assessed by the respondents. The most natural garden, with the highest score for restoration, was ranked next to the reference garden. Using SD factor analysis, sense of touch, tranquillity, mysticism, nature, well-being, and mood were found to be relevant factors for design. We made use of the findings to offer recommendations for (re)designing hospital gardens, which researchers of healthcare facilities, administrators, planners, and architects can adopt to improve the healing capability of gardens at medical centres. This paper presents a method that enables existing hospital gardens to be evaluated and compared with regard to their restorative potential and appearance, as well as facilitates the (re)construction of hospital gardens.