Although the influence of the built environment in healing and the factors that contribute in creating successful healthcare facilities have been prolific research topics, little has been studied on the subject of how different cultures perceive and navigate these spaces. Through ethnographic observation and online survey, this study explores the way people in a gender‐segregated culture, like Kuwait, occupy the waiting rooms at a public hospital in an urban setting. The findings indicate that people in the gender neutral rooms studied had a tendency to cluster in separate gender zones, adapting their behavior in order to meet cultural, political, and religious norms, and readjusting their spatial environment to achieve privacy and avoid interaction between strangers of the opposite sex. The implications on design include the creation of flexible spaces that would give people options of sitting by themselves, with others of the same sex, or with others of the opposite sex, without being cut off from the rest, and as they find more comfortable. With the globalization of design, professionals need to be attuned to the cultural needs and behavior of those we design for, and this paper tries to contribute in that respect.
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