ABSTRACT
Collectively, these six determinants provide a discursive framework. They are drawn from history, are transactional, and dialectical. They speak to the relationship between nature, healing environments, and human health. They manifest and co-mingle at various times and in various ways and function individually and collectively at key intervals in history. Key ‘moments’ are cited at those intervals where some degree of symbiosis is achieved between any subset of two or more of these dimensions of a given healing environment. They are then placed in the context of a broader set of six chronological patterns, or waves (not always denoting periods of advancement) in the history of architecture and human health – the Ancient, the Medieval, the Renaissance, the Nightingale movement, the modern megahospital, and the sustainable healthscape. Within each wave, the
functions of culture and society are shown to function as a backdrop to architecture, health, and environmental sustainability through the centuries. An attempt to portray these waves visually is presented (in Figure 2.37a-b at the end of this chapter). Unfortunately, due to limitations of space this chronology can provide little more than an introduction, a primer of sorts, on a fascinating, extensive, and at times highly complex, contradictory subject.1
