On Friday 2 July 2015, PhD candidate from An-Najah University at Lancaster University Rawa Abu Lawi participated in the “International PhD Design Conference 2015: Better Design, Environment, Society &self” which was held at Lancaster University’s Institute for Contemporary Arts.

The main theme of the conference was how to achieve better designs for the environment, society and people.

Ms. Rawa Abu Lawi participated in a paper entitled “Designing public reception areas in children’s Hospitals”, which focused on four main topics:Children’s’ Cognitive Development - especially age-appropriate interior design; Hospital Design especially children’s hospital design, designing healing environments for children; Public Spaces In Hospitals - interior architecture and interior design; Design in Context - especially the context of Palestine.

Ms. Rawa’s research aimed to determine: the key design factors, functions, constraints, and the programme requirements for designing the public reception areas, atrium and main entrance areas of a children’s hospitals; context-specific issues of Palestine; the most important things to consider for interior design and interior architecture related to the public reception areas (i.e. main entrance and atrium); and the factors pertaining to ‘healing environments’, all of which can inform the design of the public reception areas ( i.e. main entrance and atrium) of children’s hospitals.

Her main research question was: For a new children’s hospital in Palestine— how should the public reception areas (i.e., main entrance and the atrium) be designed in terms of interior design and interior architecture so that they are suitable for all age ranges of children?

At the end of the presentation, which was attended by presenters from several countries (i.e. Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, and from the UK) Ms. Abulawi received very positive feedback from the attendees as well as her professors. She in turn thanked her professor for their support.