A Research on Spatial Privacy in Public Structures: Health and Office Buildings

The concept of privacy that implies creating a boundary in regulating and controlling relationships, presents a different control mechanism on architectural structures. This study aims to question the visual, auditory, and olfactory privacy in terms of public buildings, architectural structures including office and health spaces that take place in human life occasionally. Within the scope of the study, the meaning of privacy in relation to space was questioned by using descriptive research and semiotics methods. Within studies associated with spatial privacy in office buildings, it has been inferred that personal privacy should be included in the design process in these spaces, considering efficiency and communication. Within researches on privacy in healthcare buildings, on the other hand, it has also been determined that the capacity to control the privacy of the patients in the emergency services, where they are first responded and in the units where outpatient or inpatient treatments are conducted, has been determined that the patients’ control on their self-privacy contributes the recovery process to great effect. As a result, it has been settled that spatial arrangements that can respond to the individual's privacy instinct make a significant benefaction in a wide range from work efficiency and performance to the recovery process. Therefore, the necessity of privacy, a means of organizing the relationship of the person with the environment, as an input in architectural designs is supported by the studies conducted in terms of the physical and mental health of the person