Abstract

Quite often buildings are designed by architects to meet the needs of the person paying their invoice and design something that will add to their professional portfolio but often don’t speak to the end service users. This is no fault of the architect as they have the customer at mind i.e. Douglas Macmillan Hospice and the hospice have the patient at mind. To ensure the interior design was patient centred, we consulted with them through our patient’s forum and asked them what they wanted. The response was “LOTS OF LIGHT”.

The building design reflected this BUT what where we going to do internally? It was at this point we wanted patients and staff to be involved in doing something different to complement patient needs and to meet the staff needs. It also needed to meet dementia, equality and clinical standards as well as creating a warm and welcoming environment following the theme lots of light! With a variety of large and small spaces we looked at how we could use colours to do this. We looked at how the colours differ in daylight and artificial lighting atmospheres to create a warm glow. We avoided reds, yellows and oranges that represent blood or make a patient look more jaundiced. We decided on a common base colour for walls and flooring and then created a palette of colours to choose from to add individualistic flair. We chose a bold warm colour for woodwork to assist with distinguishing these from a disability point of view along with a non-clinical navigational Stripe to flooring. On the ground floor we decided to make a feature of the furniture in the same palate of colours chosen to provide a modern homely feel whilst ensuring the furniture didn’t look clinical but provided hidden support where needed.