ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the continuing growth of the hospice movement across the world and what are increasingly seen as the challenges to architects and designers to develop more dedicated and sympathetic buildings. The development of the design brief is seen as the crucial element in achieving successful buildings, and a number of case studies are cited, detailing the process by which the needs and interests of a wide range of parties – but particularly patients, their families and staff – can be embodied in the design and consultation process. The hospice movement has to date been good at sharing good practice in design matters, though there is still too little attention being paid to ‘post-occupancy evaluation’ procedures, whereby lessons for the future are learned in detail from each completed building.
