Healing - Sheila Rauseo

Can architecture enhance therapy for disabled children? In the following research, this question will be taken in context of disabled children that engage in hippotherapy. Hippotherapy is a therapeutic session where children perform exercises while horseback riding and receiving instructions from a therapist walking along side. Dr. Daniel Bluestone, a pediatric neurologist who followed the progress of children undergoing treatment, states, “hippotherapy is effective in helping rework networks within the cerebellum and within the motor system in the cerebrum.”

The investigation of the thesis question involves designing an environment to support hippotherapy. The design research will consider the movements of the horse that are most beneficial to the children. The traditional concept of a stable building will be altered, allowing for spaces designed for both horse and children. An interactive environment will create stronger bonds between the horse and child for instance through heightened child independence, safer interactions, and easier mounting with the horse.

Scale will be a large component from which design will result. The architecture will relate to three scales; the scale of the child, the horse, and the child while mounted upon the horse. Designing with these three heights in mind will allow for different experiences depending on what part of the session the child is engaged in. A welcoming landscape with integrated therapeutic elements will provide a relaxing environment for the children.

The design will become a vessel through which the children arrive, enter, receive therapy within, and then are delivered back into the world. Developing the environment to be a sequence that the child travels through will help to assimilate what is learned during the therapy sessions into the child’s everyday world.