Goal.
At times high care patients have no distraction from the negative experiences that come with their hospitalization, a lot of negative feelings arise. They often feel lonely, for not having the possibility to play with peers. Luckily, the new playroom can create opportunities for these children to interact with peers. To include bed-bound children as well, the design goal was to come up with a concept that would: create interactions in the playroom that give high care patients, aged 6-11 years old, a sense of belonging towards each other, also when confined to their beds.

Challenge.
Although all these patients have in common that they are hospitalized on the high care ward, they also know many differences in interests, development and physical abilities. To provide the patients with a sense of belonging towards each other, the challenge was to create a concept that every child can use in its way, but at the same time enables them to play and socially interact with each other.

The final design.
‘Het Interactieve Bouwlab’ is a play environment in the playroom where children can build with LEGO in an interactive environment. To create a meaningful interaction, the bed-bound child can control this environment via the ‘Bouwlab’ App, while also sharing a video and audio connection. The concept is designed with no predefined game rules to support open-ended play in which the users can create their games and building plans. However, to spark the imagination, a weekly theme will be announced where the users can build for.

Evaluation.
The user tests showed that ‘Het Interactieve Bouwlab’ has the potential to give the patients a sense of belonging towards each other since it stimulated social play and made the children willing to interact with each other.