Humanization and Architecture in Contemporary Hospital Building

Architecture and health are closely dependent. Architecture more positively influences human health as appropriating to its needs. However, humanization of hospital spaces wasn’t always evident. Since the end of Second World War, in fact, the hospitals are good buildings if they meet only the technological and functional requirements. Dealing with humanization and its architectural quality means to focus the human needs and understand their interaction with the environment. In these terms, it is not easy to define the architectural quality, because it is based on principles, which in turn are not quantifiable. Although, there are several studies from different disciplines which allow choices in terms of “added value that can be achieved”. In this paper, we propose the results of a research about this issue. Focusing on the psychological need of man, treasuring contributions of these disciplines (particularly about environmental psychology, expressive arts, Ergonomics, Evidence-based Design, the art of gardening, the studies on the perception of shape and color) and analyzing the functional and formal features of contemporary hospital, we developed a system evaluating architectural design choices, and a methodology defining guidelines to direct the choices aimed at the humanization of hospital space.