Architectural-rich service users’ experiences within palliative environments: a designerly scoping review

Abstract

To positively strengthen the relationship between the physical character of a palliative environment (PE) and the service users who reside, visit or work in it, the architectural design process should adopt a human-centred approach. Implementing this approach would imply ‘looking through the eyes of service users’. Since practical and ethical factors seem to prevent architects from engaging directly with service users in PEs, this paper studies the appearance of architectural-rich service users’ experiences within PEs in the existing literature. In addition, we wonder why research knowledge in this field seem to remain confined to academic discourse and how academia can increase the transfer of ‘designerly’ know-how to support the architectural design process of human-centred PEs. In doing so, we propose the designerly scoping review, a methodology that customizes a scoping review in a more relevant and friendly way to architects. This review resulted in thirteen spatial aspects, divided over four atmospheres and linked to actual service users’ experiences with(in) PEs. While the review showed that theoretical knowledge is available in this particular field, the ‘architectural richness’ is often lacking in current literature.