ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the people–nature relationships in hospitals in representative historical periods of European societies, with two waves of nature integration in hospital environments emphasized: the pavilion hospital plans advocated by Florence Nightingale in the mid-19th century and the tuberculosis sanatorium movement and its impacts on modern hospital design between the two world wars. Hospital greenspaces experienced a sharp decline, even fully disappearing in postwar modernist hospitals, until their revival in contemporary designs accompanying the shift to patient-centered care and evidence-based design. Although hospital greenspaces have become increasingly common in contemporary hospitals, some usage issues remain. The indoor-outdoor transition is another salient feature at the Paimio Sanatorium. The revival of hospital greenspaces arrived with the accompaniment of the rejection of modernism and the exploration of patient-centered environmental design since the late 20th century. Growing evidence suggests the therapeutic effects of nature, and contemporary research has demonstrated such effects of greenspaces in hospitals on patient and staff outcomes.
