Healing Architecture and Lighting Optimization in Children’s Mental Health Clinics: A Systematic Literature Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54518/rh.6.4.2026.1464Keywords:
Children’s Mental Health Clinic, Evidence-Based Design, Healing Architecture, Lighting, Salutogenic Design, Window-to-Wall RatioAbstract
Children’s mental health facilities are increasingly expected to provide environments that support psychological recovery in addition to clinical treatment. However, existing healthcare design standards remain largely focused on functional and technical requirements, with limited guidance on child-centred healing environments. This study aimed to synthesize recent evidence on healing architecture for school-age children (5–11 years), identify measurable lighting design parameters applicable to architectural simulation, and evaluate their relevance within the Indonesian regulatory context. A systematic literature review following the PRISMA 2020 guideline was conducted using the Scopus database, resulting in 40 eligible peer-reviewed studies published between 2021 and 2026. Evidence was narratively synthesized across five themes: child-specific healthcare design, lighting and daylighting, color, acoustics, and integrated indoor environmental quality. The findings indicate that lighting is the most consistently supported environmental factor, followed by color, acoustics, biophilic design, and indoor environmental quality, all of which contribute to emotional regulation, stress reduction, and restorative experiences, particularly among children with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Based on this evidence, child-centred recommendations for illuminance, correlated color temperature, color rendering index, and window-to-wall ratio were synthesized and aligned with Indonesian technical standards.
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