Abstract
Purpose: While medical standard is rapidly improved, welfare of users and employees in hospitals is not treated correspondingly. Intercommunication of hospital users is thought to be very important for their welfare, and provision of conversation spaces within hospital environment needs to be expanded by architectural design. Space organization methods for the design of conversation space is to be embellished. Methods: Literature and hospital designs are analysed in order to develop the basis of argumentation for the hospital conversation space. 15 hospitals are reviewed and designed spaces for the intercommunication of the users are examined, Space organization efforts and design experiments are identified, and 6 organizational methods are proposed such as: 1) reducing territoriality 2) flowing space 3) categorizing and separating spaces 4) height variation 5) contact with outside and 6) Sun-lighted space. Results: 6 organization methods are confirmed in precedent hospital cases, and these proposed methods are applied in a new hospital design project to verify their usefulness. Implications: A hospital design project is presented based on these proposed methods of organization for the conversation space. Outcomes of this study can be applied for the formulation of human intercommunication spaces in other facilities.