The Space Works (formally The Healthcare Design Research Unit) is a novel healthcare design research consultancy dedicated to the understanding and development of healing spaces, with the creation of novel spaces - empowering, supportive, healing spaces - spaces that encourage communication, job satisfaction, recruitment and retention - in community health care.
Colour, light, sound, nature and the arts - the basics of healing environments - are woven into the design process: the end result - healing spaces that, quite simply, work.
Otherwise known as supportive environments or therapeutic environments, healing environments are designed to alleviate the stress and anxiety of illness. Creating healing environments and healing spaces is a relatively simple process – natural light, careful use of colour, access to nature, reducing intrusive noise, creating distraction through the use of the arts – all thoughtfully integrated into the architecture and design of the built environment. The discipline that informs this process is that of healthcare design.
Healing environments are sometimes termed “therapeutic environments” or "supportive environments" . The origin of the term, therapeutic environments, is based on the work of healthcare design researchers who have demonstrated real changes in immune response and healing/recovery times whilst in such supportive spaces. There is little research about the effects of healing environments and supportive spaces in community healthcare design literature. This is the primary objective of The Space Works.