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The study aims to explore how including biophilic elements in the architectural and interior design of assisted living facilities can improve the well-being and quality of life of older people. This research paper explores the concept of biophilic design and its potential benefits for assisted living facilities.

A total of 39 peer-reviewed articles were reviewed. The research involved a comprehensive review of databases such as Scopus, EBSCO, Elsevier, JSTOR and Google Scholar using keywords and Boolean operators with reference to the study. The study’s inclusion criteria for articles were restricted to academic articles published between 2013 and 2022. The analysis of the current research will offer insights into the concept of biophilic design research and its impact on the well-being and quality of life of baby boomers in assisted living facilities.

The research advocates the benefits of biophilic design to enhance the psychological well-being and quality of life of baby boomers dwelling in assisted living facilities. Biophilic design is a strategy that blends natural elements into built environments to improve our connection with nature to enhance the physical and psychological health of older people. In the context of assisted living facilities, where residents commonly experience a variety of physical and psychological health concerns, adopting biophilic design in architecture holds enormous promise.

The research focuses on applying biophilic design in assisted living facilities and its holistic approach to the overall well-being of older people. The conceptual model proposed in the study has defined the positive aspects of the biophilic design on the psychological and physiological health of older people. Few studies have been done on the impact of biophilic design, specifically on baby boomers.

This study aims to formulate a user-friendly pre-design model that could be a decision support tool for green wall systems to assist designers in selecting an optimal green wall system aligned with specified performance criteria while concurrently addressing project requirements linked to social and economic parameters. This approach seeks to enhance overall project satisfaction for the designer and the owner.

A correlation between the green wall context and design requirements and its performance on the buildings have been defined by considering its social and economic parameters, which represented the owner preferences to ensure the most satisfaction from installation as it achieves the required performance that is defined by the designer such as maximizing thermal insulation, improving indoor air quality, reducing the needed heating and cooling loads, etc. and also to achieve the satisfaction in social and economic requirements defined by the owner such as system installation cost, system maintenance cost, adding beauty value, etc.

The research developed an easy pre-design model to be a tool for green wall system decision-making for the most suitable system, which contains three main steps: the first one is defining the required performance of the green wall (designer requirements), the second step is limiting the context of the project which is made by designer and the owner requirements and finally the third step is choosing the system components that ensures achieving the requirements of both owners and designer, related to the building and climate context.

The added value lies in developing a green wall decision-making tool, essentially a pre-design model. This model considers the correlation between the project’s context, encompassing climate and building conditions. It provides a structured approach for decision-making in the early stages of green wall design. It offers valuable insights into the optimal choices related to system type, installation methods and plant characteristics. This enhanced decision-making tool contributes to more informed and efficient design processes, considering each project’s specific needs and conditions.

Engaging with heritage to support mental health and wellbeing has become a focus of research and policy, more recently moving towards social prescription of heritage interventions. While there are benefits to active participation, there are potential risks to those taking part and to the non-renewable historic remains and landscape that form the core of these projects. The purpose of the current research paper was to develop best practice guidelines for organisations offering heritage projects as interventions for people who live with mental health issues to protect both participants and heritage.

There were two research phases; a Sandpit with World Café discussions to produce a set of research priorities, and a Delphi Consultation, using three questionnaires distributed over six months, to develop best practice guidelines. The panel in both phases comprised experts through lived experience, policy, practice and research.

The Authentic and Meaningful Participation in Heritage or Related Activities (AMPHORA) guidelines cover three stages: project development, project delivery and project follow-up, with a set of action points for each stage. Of particular importance was authentic participation and expertise to ensure appropriate management of heritage/ historic environment assets and support for participants.

The AMPHORA guidelines can assist all organisations in the delivery of safe projects that support the mental health of those involved, as well as enhancing and protecting the historic environment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, these are the first research-led guidelines that help heritage organisations support those living with mental health issues.

The purpose of this study is to describe peer support work in a men’s mental health unit from a lived experience and service user’s perspective. The intertwining of process (a lived experience perspective) and subject (the therapeutic value of peer support) leads to greater knowledge and insight into peer support for people with mental health problems.

This service user narrative draws on the extracts from a reflective journal of interactions and conversations with people with mental health problems as well as feedback from service users and staff about the value of peer support. These methods allow a first-person, service user’s, reflective and narrative account of peer support work.

Peer support work, particularly hearing voices sessions, are found to be highly therapeutic and worthwhile. They promote insight and create feelings of safety and hope in what can sometimes be a frightening and hostile ward environment. Peer support provides emotional and practical support. Sharing stories and experiences of mental illness with people leads to trust, feelings of being valued, heard and accepted as well as better experiences of care and being seen as a person first. Due to their shared experiences, peer support workers are able to befriend people with mental health problems on the ward. Peer support work bridges the gap and vacuum of care between people with mental health problems and staff. It compensates for understaffing to provide more holistic and person-centred care and support.

Lived experience/ service user perspectives and narratives on peer support are rare, particularly in a hospital setting. This article provides a rich, perhaps overlooked and hidden narrative on the nature of peer support work. People with mental health problems, like Ben, are often excluded from society, health and social care, education, employment and research. This narrative opens up a pathway to understanding peer support from a service user perspective.

This paper aims to examine how the interrelation between architecture and the physical environment came to prominence and influenced the pioneering modernist architects to acquire the features of modern architecture that the British modernists later adopted. How the post-war urban poor of Britain, suffering from ill-health and dire need of sun, air and a good environment, played an essential role in alleviating the environmental concerns of the modern movement architects.

The methodology of this research involves a comprehensive architectural analysis of the Finsbury Health Centre alongside an in-depth historical investigation of modernist design principles. This review article examines books, articles and some archival materials, such as recordings, pictures, etc. on the early phase of British modernism and its environmental dimension by looking at the works of historians, architects and critics.

Design based on modernist principles. While it can be seen as the political agenda of the Labor Party, this building was not only functionally efficient but also represented the biometric concerns of modern architecture with the most natural means.

While this study provides valuable insights, it may be limited by historical documents and data availability.

The originality and value of this paper lie in its examination of the Finsbury Health Centre as a case study, shedding light on the environmental rhetoric of modernism in historic architecture. By providing a holistic assessment of the building’s environmental aspects, this research contributes to both architectural history and contemporary sustainable design practices.

The most common reaction to an acute physical illness is anxiety, which may be followed by depression. In patients with chronic diseases, the prevalence of anxiety disorders and depression is almost twice as high as in other diseases. This study aims to extract prominent components in the design of treatment spaces on reducing hospitalized patients’ depression from both experts and patients/users’ point of views. A final model is also presented based on the findings.

This research used an exploratory mixed method. The effective components were extracted through the administration of two Likert-scale researcher-made questionnaires in two phases. Q factor analysis was conducted to reach the components. A total of 205 patients were admitted to Namazi Hospital in Shiraz, and 20 architecture and psychology experts participated in the survey. Final modeling of the data was done through path analysis.

Six factors were found to be effective by experts in reducing depression in therapeutic spaces: nature-oriented space, targeted social space, diverse space, visual comfort, logical process and safe space. On the part of patients, seven components were deemed to be effective: visual perception, naturalism, functionalism, physical security, logical process, psychological safety and diversity. Also, four main cycles were extracted from the final model with the direct effect of diversity and the other five cycles were mediated by naturalism.

A total of 15 interviews with architects and psychologists, who were available at the time of the study, were conducted in January 2018. The only general question during interviews was “In your opinion, what factors are effective in reducing the level of depression of patients in the design of treatment spaces?” This may have limited the range of factors that could be surveyed in the study. After collecting the effective factors from the aforementioned expert’s points of view, the questionnaire of experts was designed (Appendix). The expert questionnaires were distributed and edited in two stages in January 2019 among 20 architect experts who were available at the time of the study. The one-year interval between designing and administering the questionnaires occurred because of the limitations posed by the COVID-19 pandemic situation. However, the interval did not pose methodological obstacles for the study.

Evidence-based investigation of the effectiveness of proper design components of therapeutic spaces in reducing the symptoms of patients with chronic secondary depression has received little attention in the literature. Using a “conceptual model,” the present study brought the issue into its focus so as to find effective components in the design of treatment spaces that can alleviate depression symptoms in chronically hospitalized patients.

Eating disorders (EDs) remain a major health concern, and their incidence has further increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the equally increasing demands on treatments and service provision and the high levels of relapse post-treatment, it is important that research explore novel and innovative interventions that can further support recovery for individuals with EDs. There is growing evidence that arts interventions are beneficial for recovery from EDs. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of conducting a stand-up comedy course to support ED recovery.

The study used a qualitative interview study design to evaluate the recovery benefits of participating in stand-up comedy workshops for a pilot group of people in recovery from EDs (n = 10).

The comedy intervention was well-attended and had high acceptability and feasibility. For most individuals, participating in the course had a positive impact, including promoting personal recovery (PR) outcomes across all five elements of the CHIME framework. Unique assets of the course included providing participants with an opportunity to distance themselves from everyday worries of living with an ED; the opportunity to cognitively reframe situations by making them the object of humour; and providing a safe space to (re-)build a positive sense of self.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that evaluates stand-up comedy workshops for ED recovery and further demonstrates the potential of arts interventions and the relevance of PR frameworks in this field.

While the main emotional labor strategies are well-documented, the manner in which professionals navigate emotional rules within the workplace and effectively perform emotional labor is less understood. With this contribution, I aim to unveil “the good, the bad and the ugly” of emotional labor as a dynamic theatrical performance.

Focusing on three geriatric long-term care units within a French public hospital, this qualitative study relies on two sets of data (observation and interviews). Deeply rooted within the field of study, the chosen methodological approach substantializes the subtle hues of the emotional experience at work and targets resonance rather than generalization.

Using the theatrical metaphor, this research underlines the role of space in the practice of emotional labor in a unique way. It identifies the main emotionalized zones or emotional regions (front, back, transitional, mixed) and details their characteristics, before unearthing the nonlinearity and polyphonic quality of emotional labor performance and the versatility needed to that effect. Indeed, this research shows how health-care professionals juggle with the specificities of each region, as well as how space generates both constraints and resources. By combining static and dynamic prisms, diverse instantiations of hybridity and spatial in-betweens, anchored in liminality and trajectories, are revealed.

This research adds to the current body of literature on the concept of emotional labor by shedding light on its highly dynamic and interactional nature, revealing different levels of porosity between emotional regions and how the characteristics of each type of area can taint others and increase/decrease the occupational health costs of emotional labor. The study also raises questions about the interplay of emotional labor performance with the level of humanization/dehumanization of elderly people. Given the global demographics about an aging population, this gives food for thought at a social level.

The emergence of Covid-19 and its epidemic features have affected many people around the world. Regardless of the physical and psychological problems caused by it, people must isolate themselves from their surroundings. This problem is more intense in urban areas where people live in crowded apartments and high-rise buildings. During the lockdown, residents of such buildings suffered from disconnection from nature, in addition to the lack of communication with others. As most multi-story apartments and residential complexes do not have separate green spaces and do not provide a safe connection to nature for occupants, it is very tough for the residents of these buildings to endure the disease, and occupants are more vulnerable to disease. Accordingly, this study proposes the biophilic design as an effective approach to provide a secure connection with nature in residential complexes and high-rise apartments.

The questionnaire method was used in this study to analyze the raised hypotheses. Two types of residential zones were selected for the survey and comparing the results. One is apartment units without dedicated green space, and the other is villa houses with private green space. Size of the sample population include 300 people (150 residents of an apartment block and 150 residents of villa homes).

Strict restrictions during the pandemic have prevented people from connecting with nature, especially in urban areas, owing to the lack of separated and dedicated green spaces, whereas connection with nature can be healing and lead to relieving anxiety and stress in this era based on the approved research. Accordingly, applying a biophilic approach to the design process would be helpful.

The lack of a biophilic project to observe was one of the limitations of this study. Being an available biophilic project in the surroundings could be very helpful to observe and acquire comprehensive knowledge and experiences from the handlers and users of biophilic buildings.

This study can be beneficial for patients, individuals and occupants of apartments and residential complexes in urban areas who suffer from distance from nature and green spaces during the restrictions of pandemics such as Covid-19.

This study proposes the use of biophilic architecture in the design process of residential complexes and high-rise apartments to provide isolated and dedicated green spaces for occupants, especially during the lockdown when people have been deprived of parks and public green spaces.