Pediatric Emergency Psychiatric Room VR

Through a joint course taught between The Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, Design+Health, I and three other students worked with Dr. Capraro, a pediatric emergency physician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, RI to redesign the psychiatric patient rooms. We focused on primary research at first through shadowing opportunities and speaking with nurses and doctors alike. From that point onward, we were committed to secondary research and designing the variety of forms our intervention could take.

Programs: Autodesk Maya, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Unity

After the sketch and idea generation phase, we spoke with Dr. Schwendeman from Cincinatti Hospital to gather specific statistics on the pediatric emergency room population and more accurately understand our target audience. From there onward, we prototyped different light fixtures and decided that virtual reality would be the most engaging and immersive methodology to this process. Through input from my teammates, I 3D modeled all objects in Autodesk Maya, making sure to have simple wire frames, and then moved these environments to Unity and utilized C# scripts for interactive elements. Once they were completed, I used the HTC Vive to test the different room designs. Finally, the documentation videos of the virtual reality experience were composited in Adobe After Effects for professional presentation (here).

Room Rendering (Before Redesign) + Video of Space

Redesigned Space Rendering + Virtual Reality Prototype

For the final design, we integrated a variety of different modular components to the room. Some of these items would be: a bean bag chair, weighted blanket, posters, projector system, calming sounds/music, and even a wall with touch lights that when pressed will turn on. From our research, we learned that these spaces must have items that are easily cleanable, safe, and able to provide the child with a sense of control. When these needs are met, both the hospital staff and patients tend to approve of the renovation. More statistics and data can be found within our short 20 minute presentation document, found here and above.