Designing Healthcare Waiting Rooms for Children and Families

Much of what Aliento Studio argues for elsewhere is calm, muted tones, soft materials, spaces designed to bring a nervous system down rather than up. Children's waiting areas are often approached differently, and for good reason, though not in a single, universal direction.

Bright colour and tactile, playful elements can ease anxiety for many children through engagement rather than through quiet, giving them something to focus on other than why they're there. That's a reasonably well-supported design instinct in paediatric healthcare settings.

It isn't true for every child, though, and a good children's space needs to account for that rather than assume one approach fits all. Autistic children, and children with sensory processing differences more broadly, can find bright, busy, highly stimulating environments overwhelming rather than reassuring. Best practice in paediatric design increasingly reflects this, offering a genuine choice of environments where possible, an engaged, colourful main space alongside a calmer, lower-stimulation retreat area, rather than assuming a single sensory register will work for every child and family who walks in.

The underlying principle is consistent even where the answer differs. Read the room correctly, and design for the actual range of people who'll use it, rather than a single assumed visitor.

See where this applies across sectors →