Evidence and affect: employing virtual reality to probe what’s missing from evidence-based design research
Rebecca McLaughlan, Stephanie Liddicoat · Design for Health · 2018
Within healthcare environments, evidence-based design (EBD) studies often seek to identify architectural design strategies capable of affecting a reduction in patient anxiety. Yet, the theory of affect is seldom discussed. The definition of affect employed herein refers to a spatial capacity to elicit certain subjective, sensory experiences, and to communicate what dispositions and agencies are enactable in a place. Within this article, we examine the relevance of affect to the field of EBD and present findings from a pilot study where 68 participants were asked to experience and document their responses to three virtual architectural environments with varying aesthetic characteristics. Finally, we provide a discussion of the implications of these findings to the field of EBD and reflect on the affordances of virtual reality (VR) as a method for investigating affect. The discussion is supported by selected data from a corresponding study conducted by the authors within a cancer centre.