Iasis Place / Oasis Placebo

A therapeutic environment through the combination of architecture, art and nature. “Iasis Place” requires healing spaces, therapeutic activities, functional architectural solutions & heavenly views to become “Oasis Placebo”. A miniature of paradise on earth for relaxation wellness consolidation. A garden of earthly delights.

Man has always looked for a healing place, a place to rest, to calm the body and mind. The first and foremost healing place is Paradise. It may has changed name, materiality and aura over the years but as a concept it remains unchanged. Archetypal structures of medical tourism (temple of Tel Brak, Asclepieia, Valetudinarian, monastic inns, sanatoriums) led to the operation of hospitals as healing machines. How can the hospital, which is a place of treatment, become a place of hospitality & a place of healing? Can sick people travel, see the sights & feel joy while following their treatment scheme? Iasis Place - Oasis Placebo, is a project that deals with the above-mentioned concerns, a resort for medical tourism in Halkidiki, Greece. The purpose of this project is to create a therapeutic environment, a hybrid hospital-hotel, through the composition of architecture, art & nature, a miniature of paradise on earth. The choice of the location of intervention (opposite the monastic community of Mount Athos) is catalytic because the personal Oasis contains redemption, liberation, peace and is associated with the monasteries where the monks give their own struggle to reach paradise through the purification of the soul. “Iasis Place” requires healing spaces, therapeutic activities, functional architectural solutions and heavenly views to become an “Oasis Placebo”. Like a monastery surrounded by a wall, containing monks’ cells and the central garden of the monastery around the catholicon (hortus conclusus), Iasis Place consists of the Diagnosis Wall, the Treatment Hermitages, the Recovery Garden with the Catholic. Architectural design exists as a therapeutic tool as if drugs were administered to the patient. The medical tourist will approach the Iasis place seeking for his own cure (his Oasis) with the help and support not only of specialists but also of nature. The Iasis site operates as an Oasis placebo where a pseudo medic situation (without true action) improves the condition of a patient, because the patient deeply believes that he is taking a medicine that will help him (Architectural Placebo Effect).