Healthcare Design - November 2018 - 24

NEW

LIGHT

Ever-changing
demands on healthcare environments,
driven by evolving
care delivery models, customer expectations, and technology,
are pushing the design
community to seek fresh
ideas on how to deliver
adaptable environments
that can enhance and improve the patient and staff
experience. Two of our
keynote speakers at the
Healthcare Design Expo
& Conference will deliver
just that. The opening
and closing presentations
will explore why it's so
important to re-evaluate
what we think we already
know about aesthetics
and patient engagement,
specifically, and how that
process can lead to better
outcomes and improved
health and wellness.
By Anne DiNardo

24

NOVEMBER 2018
7

OPENING KEYNOTE: AESTHETICS
OF JOY, 8 A.M., SUNDAY,
NOV. 11
Ingrid Fetell Lee, designer and founder of The
Aesthetics of Joy, former design director at
Ideo, and author of "Joyful: The Surprising
Power of Ordinary Things to Create
Extraordinary Happiness"

here was a professor saying it could be created
by ordinary, mundane objects like a cup, a
lamp, or a stool. I asked the professor to explain,
hoping to hear a scientific rationale for how
physical objects might influence our emotions,
but he couldn't. And neither could any of the
other professors on the review panel. So I began
researching this connection myself
and discovered that there's an

Healthcare Design: Why is
joy an important aspect of
design?
Ingrid Fetell Lee: We often
think of joy as superfluous,

emerging body of research that
demonstrates a link between
our environment and our
emotional well-being. I wrote
my recent book "Joyful" to
share my research and help

a nice-to-have feeling, but
not something essential to our
lives or our well-being. But, in
fact, joy is one of the six universal

people become more aware of
the deep, unconscious ways that
their surroundings affect them.

emotions, along with surprise, anger,
part of our internal reward and motivation system.

What's one thing you learned through
your research that surprised you?

For countless generations, our ancestors relied

How robust the research is that shows that certain

on this emotion as an indication of what to move

environmental elements can influence mental

toward; it was their emotional guide to the things

and physical health. For example, a growing

that could sustain life and help them flourish. Now,

base of research out of Japan on the practice of

when we find environments that elicit joy, what

"forest bathing" shows that phytoncide chemicals

we really are feeling is a sense that we've found a

produced by many trees (and found in certain

place that has sensory characteristics conducive to

essential oils) boost the activity of natural killer

human thriving.

cells, which play an important role in the body's

fear, sadness, and disgust. Joy evolved as

response to viruses and cancer cells. Similarly,

As a designer, when did you start thinking
about the role of physical spaces to promote
joy and health?

studies show that amplifying broad-spectrum light

During a review at the end of my first year of

associated with Alzheimer's disease. And a meta-

design school, a professor made an offhand

analysis of studies on light therapy has shown it to

comment: "Your work gives me a feeling of joy."

be effective not only in treating seasonal depres-

This struck me because I'd always thought of joy

sion, but also non-seasonal depression-as effec-

as something intangible and ephemeral, and yet

tive in some cases as antidepressants.

HCDMAGAZINE.COM

in long-term care homes can have a beneficial
effect on both depression and cognitive decline
http://www.HCDMAGAZINE.COM
Healthcare Design - November 2018

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