Can Museums, Nature Centers and Visitor Serving Organizations Offer Healing Environments?
Can Museums, Nature Centers and Visitor Serving Organizations Offer Healing Environments?
July 29, 2015 by Taylor Studios
In a recent version of AIA’s Guidelines for Design and Construction of Healthcare Facilities, access to nature is recommended. All incorporate nature as part of their healing environments. Healthcare is seeing growing consumer engagement, requirements on patient satisfaction and the creation of healing environments in place of the old monolithic hospitals of our past. Healthcare must connect the demands of body, mind and spirit in order to meet these modern demands. Adding nature as part of the healing environment seems like common sense.
report the following benefits of designing with nature in mind:
In Nature Center circles, Richard Louv’s book highlights the effects of nature deficit disorder. The of how far we as a society have moved away from nature are alarming. These are some of the many benefits of nature:
There is much in the media about the benefits of nature, too. Here are just two recent articles: and . The Biophilic Design movement, EcoTherapy and Experience Design demonstrates the positive emotional and physical effects of nature.
Most of the natural history world in museums and nature centers do not offer experiences that focus on the emotional and physical effects nature has to offer. Interpretive design speaks of engaging the emotions of the visitor to win their hearts and minds. If visitors learned the benefits to health and emotions that nature provides in an exhibit, isn’t there a good chance that would impact their behavior? Let’s teach them why it is healing. Why not team up with your local hospital like the . Let’s create environments that are nature related and are just fun, like . ! Why not offer other services like . Teach them how to bring nature into their . And for your more analytically minded visitors, teach them why .
Have you ever visited a nature exhibit that was healing? Have you seen other communities combine museums with their healthcare community?