The environment heals and the evidence is before our eyes in an ever more palpable way: orthotherapy , forest bathing – for example – we remember how nature can be context, but above all action to feel better.

In northern Europe they have understood this for some time. It is no coincidence that the environmental awareness that has led to the design of  architectures  for  eco- sustainable cities , lifestyles that tend to lighten rather than weigh down, calibrating the quantity of what is necessary to feel satisfied on the right measure of each one . The recent global strike for future movement also came to life starting with the young Swedish student  Greta Thunberg . 

In terms of health, in Norway another step has been taken towards the recognition of the profitable association between natural context and personal well-being: the latest concrete manifestation of this attention to well-being is given by the Outdoor Care Retreat .  

How hospitals surrounded by greenery work

The Outdoor Care Retreats combine the essential need to have access to highly specialized treatments  with the equally essential need to  benefit from the environment in which you live , with the need for beauty and harmony, peace and silence.

These small houses respond to the need of each person to have a place to take care of themselves, a privileged, protected place, surrounded by tranquility and essentiality. Dedicated to patients , but also to family members , the goal is to amplify as much as possible the recognized well-being that comes from living in contact and immersed in nature . 

The need for a place of quiet and serenity becomes even more pressing when it is necessary to spend long periods in hospitals or nursing homes. The cabin retreats allow you to insert a break in long-stay treatments, transporting the patient to privileged and protected spaces, in the security of having treatments available in the shortest possible time, but without the painful consequences of hospitalization in closed, impersonal environments, “Cold”.

Looking similar to tree houses , these structures have been designed based on many studies on the benefits that life in the open air brings to health, even in cases of sick people. 

Built near the two major Norwegian hospitals , Oslo University Hospital and Sørlandet Kristiansand , they fit perfectly into the surrounding forests, and use materials in harmony with the environment of the forest itself: wooden structures  and coatings in natural materials. The large windows allow you to feel part of the lush green, with its life and its calm.

They are also designed with particular attention to users and their needs: they are therefore accessible even to the most serious patients  in a wheelchair and in highly disabling conditions.

These open-air hospitals appear to be a mirage for many other countries, where the need for hospitalization is experienced as further suffering. Bringing the patient to a natural environment could become an absolutely possible path to follow with the aim of amplifying the success of the treatments and reducing, as a direct consequence of the improvement of the required performances and the results of the treatments themselves, hospitalizations.