The $1.76 billion Fiona Stanley Hospital in Western Australia is an example of how sustainable building practices can affect well-being, according to an article on the Financial Review website. 

“The beds all look out onto greenery,” according to Dennis Else, executive director of sustainability, health and safety at Brookfield Multiplex, which built the hospital. “And it’s not just any greenery, it’s exactly what was growing there before the site was developed.”

The 643-bed hospital is constructed around ideas of what can help people heal faster, Else said in the article.

Else referred to a 1980s paper in the journal, Science, that found patients in a hospital who look onto green fields got better 15 percent faster than those who were just looking at walls or who had no view. 

“This sort of thinking can have a massive effect on the health budget when it’s put into practice,” he said.

The seeds for the green hospital came from the Science paper and also from a professor in neuro-endocrinology, a specialist in the way brain function intersects with the built environment, according to the article. The expert showed the hospital's executive board how the brain responds to the environment, particularly the impact on the endocrine system and dopamine production in the brain.

Read the article.