The impact of biophilic design in Maggie’s Centres: A meta-synthesis analysis

Abstract

This paper presents a meta-synthesis conducted to identify, compare and synthesize published qualitative data related to the Maggie's Centres, as a paradigmatic architectural example in the provision of non-institutional cancer support. These centres are internationally renowned for their unique architecture, where the careful design of indoors and outdoors spaces plays a critical role in their agenda for supporting care. Previous research has thoroughly analysed this approach to therapeutic environments, not only confirming the importance of designed space as originally conceived in Maggie's philosophy but also identifying precise supporting effects associated with specific elements within their design. This paper aims to provide a new reading of Maggie's contribution to cancer support by offering an examination of all these data through the lens of biophilia, which clarifies the impact of design decisions connected to nature on cancer patients' lives. The analytic process included a systematic search strategy, extraction and classification of salient concepts using an open-coding approach, and lastly an interpretive evaluation. The systematically selected data helped to identify and rank the biophilic design parameters that appear the most critical for promoting and supporting human health and wellbeing in non-clinical therapeutic environments, from the user's perspective. It also provided a compilation of distinctive design interventions related to biophilic parameters, which provides benchmark information for future research and design guidance in these environments.