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[Hospital]ity Hospitable Hospitals: The Place of Healing

Helminski, Laura A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396524136

Abstract Details

2014, MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture.
In all of its complexity, hospital architecture is merely a shell constructed around the scientific knowledge of human bodies and the technological instruments required to care for them. The traditional approach to hospital design has become so utilitarian that it has resulted in a loss of intimacy between humans and their environment and community, evoking moods of inhospitable estrangement and isolation. Governed by global economics and modern technology, the current mega-hospital model neglects the invisible foundation of human relationships and intuitive background experiences within the everyday lived world, explained by Heidegger as “the loss of nearness.” This thesis offers a more poetic language of hospital architecture, in order to turn our attention away from the utility of medical equipment and instead foreground the lived world around us with sensual experiences and sharpened understanding of the spiritual intimacy and layers of meaning inherent in life and death. The design of a small suburban hospital for seniors in Sylvania, Ohio will mediate between the objective world that science measures and the inexhaustible lived world of experience and traditions. This project explores the positive effects that comforting, intimate, and sensually engaging environments can have on the healing process of patients, seeking a welcome and embrace for the human spirit. The syncretic design deploys allegorical tectonics, poetic materiality, meditative lighting, invigorating landscapes, and intuitive way-finding, creating meaningful environments that will restore the human need for placefulness, sensuality, and intimacy. A truly healthful and hospitable hospital must embed the factual objectivity of medical science within the patients’ and visitors’ truthful and subjective experiences of being.
John Eliot Hancock, M.Arch. (Committee Chair)
Michael McInturf, M.Arch. (Committee Member)
112 p.
Architecture
Hospital; Architecture; Hospital Architecture; Hospitality; Baby Boomers; Suburbs

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Helminski, L. A. (2014). [Hospital]ity Hospitable Hospitals: The Place of Healing [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396524136

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Helminski, Laura. [Hospital]ity Hospitable Hospitals: The Place of Healing. 2014. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396524136.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Helminski, Laura. "[Hospital]ity Hospitable Hospitals: The Place of Healing." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1396524136

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1396524136
477
© 2014, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License [Hospital]ity Hospitable Hospitals: The Place of Healing by Laura A. Helminski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.