Different Types Of Evidence-Based Design
There’s Evidence-based Design, and then there’s NOT Evidence-based Design.
Here are a few evidence-based design art guidelines. Many of these guidelines come from “A Guide to Evidence-based Art” from The Center For Health Design, research by Ulrich and Gilpin, a case study on best practices in evidence-based design by the Mays Clinic at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and so much more.
Landscapes
They can be regional, generic, or seasonal. They should have visual depth or open foreground. Trees should have a broad canopy. Savannah and park-like landscapes are preferred by many. Vegetation should be lush. Empty park benches and sunsets should be avoided. The empty park bench might remind someone of loss and loneliness. A sunset might represent the end of life.
Florals
Florals should include familiar shapes of plants and flowers. They should appear healthy and fresh, and flower colors should be vibrant. Gardens and bouquet styles are acceptable. Flowers in vases should be used sparingly and only for variety.
Taking scientific or medical study results and turning them into artistic creations is not the easiest thing to do. There are no step-by-step guides to follow, and the rules need to be there, but sometimes they need a little bending.
The painting above, Healing Flowers, spent time on exhibit in a museum and then in a gallery. It recently sold, in 2025, to an art collector in Fort Worth, Texas. Also, in Jan/Feb 2025, it was featured on the cover of Healthcare Design Magazine. In addition, in 2024, I was also asked to show it in another issue of Healthcare Design Magazine issue. On one international art gallery website, this painting received thousands of views.
While creating it, I tried to adhere to the evidence-based landscape design guidelines for healthy outcomes. By following the rules, I figured I could trigger the brain to create dopamine, which would produce in its viewers feelings of happiness.
If you look closely, you can see through the stems, which gives viewers visual depth. According to the research, seeing through the stems helps humans feel safe. It takes us back to our days of hunting on the Savannah, where dangerous animals could hide in thick grass and then attack us. While the stems were thin, I ensured the flowers appeared lush and abundant. Again, this would suggest an abundance of food.
Healing Abundance by Dorothea Sandra, EDAC
Using the same evidence-based design guidelines, Healing Abundance also sold in early 2025. It was sold from a gallery in Paris, France, and shipped to a company in Hong Kong with television channels in Hong Kong, mainland China, Macau, and other Chinese-speaking areas. The soil and stems are there, but I wanted to add lush vegetation through the flowers.
Years ago, when I was living in Asia, a good friend who was also a medical doctor ended up in the hospital. I went to visit her with a bouquet of cut flowers in hand. After she got out of the hospital, she told me that a bouquet of flowers was not the best gift. A potted plant would have been more appropriate. When I asked why, she explained that cut flowers will soon die, while a plant in soil continues to live on.
Most everything I do in the creation of an evidence-based design painting is for the health and happiness of viewers.
Today’s Mood Busting Art
Is it possible to bust through a bad mood with art?
Garden Holiday by Dorothea Sandra, EDAC
As many of you know, we live in “interesting” times. So many people today are stressed or sad or deeply troubled by something or someone. I like to use my art to fight against this by creating credible pieces that bust through these moods and create upward movement feelings of happiness and hope and joy. Using well-researched guidelines, I like to reach inside the brain through art and help shift a negative mood into something positive.
From the 1960s until today, serious researchers with very serious studies…from different countries…from different multidisciplinary fields have converged to create a new field of art called Evidence-based Design. According to the National Library of Medicine at the National Institute of Health, “Evidence-based design is scientific analysis methodology that emphasizes the use of data acquired in order to influence the design process in hospitals. It measures the physical and psychological effects of the built environment on its users.”
Today, evidence-based design isn’t just for hospitals. It’s for all of us. It is for many of the places humans go. What is my role in all of this? A very small one—but I think an important one. Today my art hangs in hospitals, businesses, organizations, and homes. Using my artistic talents and evidence-based design training and certification—just as I did in this triptych art called Happy Garden—I very deliberately and very strategically create happy, happy art for today’s built environments.
People often ask me where I get my inspiration for this style of painting I call Bubble Art. These photos of flowers come from just two of my yards in Northern Michigan. I live in a super clean, healthy environment and inspiration always seems to be all around me—everywhere I seem to look. Nature is a truly powerful healer. When we can’t be out in it, putting art on our walls that captures nature’s fun and beauty often helps.
(I keep 100 percent pesticide-free yards with many bee and butterfly friendly plants. The bees this years are plentiful. I have even seen up to 8-10 bees on one bush.)
In a Garden Holiday, I used my evidence-based knowledge to select the cheerful background color. I painted the flowers in soil to give the artwork a rooted to our life-giving earth feel. Flowers and stems are never similar or boring in nature, so I gave this work an abundance of fun-filled stem twists and turns, pops full of flowery color, and many hints of humor.
If you would like to learn a bit more about evidence-based design and see how I applied it to my art, my new book, 100 Days Of Happy Happy Art, Evidence-Based Design, is available through Amazon.
