Intuitively, we play. Play is more than just a frivolous activity or playgrounds and theme parks; it is how we - and especially children - discover and engage with our environment. More than just a frivolous activity, play can be a means of expression, escape, and familiarity. But how does play fit within a hospital context; a context where treatment, care, efficiency, and function supersede the comfort and experience of patients and visitors?

Based at Starship Children’s Health in Auckland, New Zealand, this research supports the output of a design proposal for central public spaces within the hospital (atrium, mezzanine, and the Koromiko Garden). This practice-led research asks, how can an enquiry into play activate therapeutic hospital environments through empathy, imagination, and re-enchantment? With play being inherently linked to how children see the world, a notion of play drives this project and asks; how can an enquiry into play activate therapeutic hospital environments through empathy, imagination, and re-enchantment? The output attempts to bridge the systematic confines of a hospital space with play to inform a design proposal for a public spaces refurbishment at Starship Children's Health.

This research was constructed by opposites and contradictions; compared to free unregulated play, hospitals by their nature are systematised and ordered. Cultural theorist Johan Huizinga discusses the ambiguous nature of play and its relation to space. One of his conditions for play is that it must be a free choice (Huizinga, 1955). Thus spaces cannot force play to occur, only encourage or inspire someone to want to play. But what happens when play is situated in the ordered structure of a hospital?

An investigation into hospital design saw a shift towards more patient-centred design. During Modernism, hospitals became recognised as an "instrument of cure" and therapy (p.149). In The Incorporation of the Hospital into Modern Technology (2007), philosopher Michel Foucault discusses the discipline imbued into hospitals. The text examines the relationship between the hospital, the doctor, and the pathogen. To an extent, the disease becomes the focus rather than the patient as a whole, and "the individual thus appears as an object of medical knowledge and practice" (Foucault, 2007: 151). "There, beneath the eye of the hospital doctor, diseases would be grouped into orders, genera, and species" (Foucault, 2007: 42), and consequently categorising patients by their condition. The main task for doctors was to observe, classify, treat, and document patient progress in notes, tags, and organised index cards (Foucault, 2007: 150-151). Efficient treatment and care are sometimes prioritised at the expense of patient experience.

But, hospitals facilitate more than just clinical spaces such as operating theatres, and patients have needs beyond medical care for their ailments. Hospitals are vast and complex environments with users at different stages of treatment and caregiving. So, what is the role of public spaces in the hospital- in particular, a children's hospital in New Zealand today? And although not a clinical space, how can these areas support patients' care and their hospital experience? The public areas reside outside of the doctor's critical gaze, and a notion of play is employed as a means to address patients' needs beyond physical treatment.

User-engagement through staff interviews and a children’s design charrette helped frame the brief and ensured their voices were central to the project. Material studies of colour, drawings, and mappings created connections between ideas from users and the site. Iterative developments of the design proposal layered these imaginative interrelationships between people and their environment, with the aim of improving the experiences for Starship patients, families, and staff.

Read Jewel's full exegesis at https://hdl.handle.net/10292/11561