Kinetic model of an immersive sculpture landscape suggested for an unused space of Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. Intended to create a non-hospital zone within the hospital.
Studies like the one Roger Ulrich published in 1984, shows us that merely looking at nature, even through a window, have an positive impact on patients recovery after surgery. In his study, the patients with a window view of a brick wall on average stayed 8.70 days in the hospital, where those with a view of trees where ready to leave after an average of 7.96 days.
If we are creating our built environment in a manner where the view of it make us sick for longer than we would in our natural habitat, what are we doing wrong? What visual / spacial qualities are present in the nature view (trees) that are not present in architectural view (brick wall)? If we managed to extract some of these qualities and apply them to our human created environment, would they still have a positive impact on our health?
One of the main focus of this project have been motion, since this is a feature very prominent in nature, but hardly found in architectural spaces. In a forest even the smallest breath of wind will make the grass, the leaves, the branches move in synchrony, drops of rain will make the surface of the pond ripple, and the clouds moving across the sky is constantly shape-changing as well as continuously affecting the amount and quality of sunlight reaching the ground.
Surrounded by nature our whole environment is constantly in change. In comparison architecture appears frozen. Especially in our built indoor environment, the walls the floors, the ceilings, the staircase, the furniture all is designed to be motionless, and with electrical lightning we can even keep the light constant without being affected by the whims of the clouds and the sun.
According to the Attention Restoration Theory, environments with calmly moving stimuli like a bonfire, moving clouds or shivering leaves, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, a state which let the body relax and the brain recover.
