A Short Tale: The Craft of Play in Children's Hospitals

It is possible to underestimate how much an atmosphere influences ones being. Health Care Centers and hospitals stimulate the necessity to tackle the challenge of proposing meaningful hospital design, beyond the mere necessity to house medical equipment and serve a purpose beyond function. The importance of this recognition motivates the need for architecture to make a contribution to thinking about the places that are beyond the medicalized spaces of being ill. This thesis asks whether it is possible to design a space that engages the imagination of the patient contributing to their sense of place in the world beyond their condition of illness. There is a fine line between perception and imagination. What distinguishes one from the other is where the imagined exists and makes itself manifest in - the space around us. This design proposal utilizes play as an instrument, challenging space to stimulate a sense of wonder.