Enriched Embodiment Environments for Healthcare Spaces: Exploration through the Design of a Cancer Treatment Facility

The increasing understanding that a patient’s experience and mental well-being influence their physical condition, treatment outcomes, and even prognosis, is changing the design of healthcare environments. A gap remains in establishing scientifically grounded methodologies, design guidelines and best practices, for designing real-world healthcare settings that address newly-recognized needs. Drawing on principles from neuroscience and human-computer interaction, we explore the concept of enriched multisensory healthcare environments that employ embodied interaction. This work reviews the principles underlying the design of such spaces, and an implementation of such an environment at a treatment facility within a newly constructed cancer treatment center. Two interaction prototypes were developed, employing embodiment to leverage the benefits of multisensory enriched environments. We detail the design process, decisions, implementation choices, and rationale applied. Finally, we discuss future directions for this work and the enriched embodiment environment approach in healthcare.