Kids in the atrium: Comparing architectural intentions and children's experiences in a pediatric hospital lobby

Seeking to uncover children's self-identified, self-articulated place within contemporary pediatric hospitals, we assess how the atrium-by providing important, but difficult-to-measure functions such as comfort, socialization, interface, wayfinding, contact with nature and diurnal rhythms, and respite from adjacent medicalized spaces-contributes to the well-being of young patients. We used theoretical underpinnings from architecture and humanistic geography, and participatory methods advocated by child researchers and theorists. Our findings begin to address the significant gap in understanding about the relationship between the perceptions of children and the settings where their healthcare occurs. The study also underlines children's potential to serve as agents of architectural knowledge, reporting on and recording their observations of hospital architecture with remarkable sophistication.