How to give meaning to an interior?

An architect can choose a colour to emphasize the length of a hallway. But this is architectonical value, this doesn't benefit the user. Giving meaning to an interior, creating added value for the end user, that's what I strive for.

At Schiphol airport clogs, windmills and other icons are used in combination with sounds to help people remember where they parked their car. If we need to use icons and sounds for a healthy population, we should be able to be more creative as to give space for elderly with dementia a name or number. The abstraction level of the things brought up often is too high. It's better to make the doors of the rooms of habitants in nursing homes personal. A picture of the habitant on the door can help, but it needs to be one matching the image the elderly has from him or herself, maybe a youth photo.

Furthermore it bothers me all doors in healthcare facilities often have the same shape and colour: private rooms, sanitary, rooms for the staff - the hallway is a long row of uniform doors. This is such an unfortunate choice. Different doors and colours for different functionalities can support people. The environment becomes intuitively readable. 

Close to the natural

Important for this is to know your target group, giving yourself accountability of the situation the user is in. Take art in healthcare centres for example. Often is chosen for abstract works. But people visiting or living in those kind of centres are often under such an amount of stress, they can't process abstract art. The brain does not have the leftover capacity to fix interpretational questions.

Images of nature on the other hand work very well. Real, natural materials as well.  If you look to the healthcare environment we see a lot of plastic. The material is dead. Residents live in a bubble: surrounded by unnatural materials, in an artificial climate. This can be improved a lot. The perception we create is decided by the materials we choose. The closer we stay to the natural, the more added value it has for the user. That's what drives me.

Fiona de Vos - owner of studio dVO | Bewuster Bouwen and teacher Environmental psychology at the University of Amsterdam. On the event KOMT DAT ZIEN at Thursday 12th of November see will be giving a presentation about the psychology of our surroundings at our ‘Over de Vloer’.