Active and Healthy Case Della Comunità: Model Research for Spatial Requirements of Waiting Spaces

The built environment is one of the determinants of health as it acts as a promoter of healthy lifestyles. This research is dealing with the investigation of design solutions to promote healthy and active aging in socio-health care facilities for primary care in Italy. This is a three year research which aims at developing Design Guidelines of waiting space in Casa della Comunità (House of the Community, a new model of territorial primary care facility in Italy) to promote good health for all people. According to these goals, the research mixed different research methods in three main phases: background research, starting from literature review to define a Theoretical Framework; data collection and field research, dealing with technical analysis of international best practices, perceptive analysis through interviews and questionnaires to the staff, patients and caregivers of the socio-health care facilities, in order to define spatial requirements for waiting spaces; results, developing tools and design solutions of health-promotive waiting spaces (Design Guidelines and two applications in virtual reality pilot and in a physical one in Florence, Italy). In this contribution, we focus on the background and field research phase, describing the process leading to the definition of spatial requirements for Casa della Comunità’s waiting spaces.