Adjaye Associates has been commissioned the design of district hospitals, part of the Agenda 111 initiative by the Ghana Government. The major vision for Ghana’s healthcare sector will consist of 111 Hospitals including 101 District Hospitals, 2 Psychiatric Hospitals, 7 Regional Hospitals, and the Redevelopment of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
In this week's reprint from Metropolis Magazine, authors Madeline Burke-Vigeland, FAIA, LEED AP, a principal at Gensler, and Benjamin A. Miko, MD, assistant professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center explore how uniform standards applied across the built environment can protect our communities from COVID-19 and future pandemics.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) unveiled its design for the New York City Public Health Laboratory, a ten storey building meant to strengthen the metropole's capability to respond to a variety of public health issues and future challenges. The laboratory is organized within a cubic glass volume stepping outward, which rises from a masonry-clad podium containing community-related functions. In order to give the new facility an active role within the Harlem neighbourhood, the design incorporates a training lab and an auditorium available to the community.
A new film by OMA / Reinier de Graaf titled “The Hospital of the Future” has been released as a part of the exhibition, Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales at Matadero Madrid Centre for Contemporary Creation. Dubbed a “visual manifesto”, the 12-minute short film questions the long-standing conventions in the field of healthcare architecture in terms of the methodology behind how hospitals are built and also why they are built in certain ways. Through an exploration of the role that disease has played in shaping cities, the film offers a lens into the future of what we might expect for healthcare design, especially as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
BIM and 3D modeling are essential in today’s architecture field. What they aren’t, however, is static or prescriptive. The way BIM is integrated varies not just by firm, but even by individual project. The size of the building, structure of the project team, or even government mandates can dictate how a firm utilizes their BIM capabilities. Belgian firm Osar Architects found that Vectorworks is the best match for the way they run their office. Specifically, Vectorworks Architect is well-matched for the type and extent of modeling they do because it's flexible to fit the needs of each project.
Foster + Partners has begun construction on the new Magdi Yacoub Global Heart Centre in Cairo, Egypt. With views of the Pyramids of Giza, the hospital site borders the Zewail City of Science and Technology as part of an integrated health and medical research zone. The design was made to respond to the needs of patients, their families and the staff that care for them while decreasing recovery times.
For several years, Rosi Pachilova has been looking into and building upon the tools we use to analyse and configure layouts for our built environment. Together with Dr Kerstin Sailer, a reader in Social and Spatial Networks at the Space Syntax Laboratory, UCL, she has developed a tool that can assess spatial proposals for their impact on the quality of care of healthcare providers. In 2019, their work was awarded the RIBA President’s Award for Research in the Building in Quality category.
Despite all the news of re-openings, lifted restrictions, al fresco options dining, and a return to something more closely resembling “normal,” COVID-19 is still very much with us. And despite the defeatist/downplayed/nothing to see here stance embraced by the current presidential administration, the United States is still in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis. In some states, both new reported cases and hospitalizations have now reached record highs.
This being said, the need for accessible, easy to fabricate, and quick-to-deploy testing facility solutions are still in great need, particularly in dense urban areas, at large institutions and workplaces, and in underserved communities where coronavirus testing might come as a luxury, not a basic necessity. In terms of testing availability, all bases need to and must be covered.
As the healthcare infrastructure is becoming overwhelmed and hospitals around the world are reaching their capacities, new alternative possibilities are emerging. In response to bed shortage and facility saturation, architects around the world are taking action, in the on-going fight against the coronavirus. Focusing their knowhow to find fast and efficient design solutions that can be implemented anywhere, they are proposing flexible, fast assembled, mobile, and simple structures. With a very tight timetable, some projects are already implemented and in service, while others remain on a conceptual level, waiting to be adopted.
Concerns about the hygiene, durability, and healthiness of interior spaces have increased considerably in recent years, drawing extreme attention to hospital and health-related projects. Consequently, the choice of materials becomes essential from the conception of each project, guaranteeing that each space performs effectively on all fronts, from resistance and safety to environmental comfort and aesthetics.
In particular, the enclosures in hospitals and health centers must conform to a series of predetermined guidelines and dimensions, which respond to the standardized sizes of different types of equipment and to the needs of each medical procedure. Within the robust framework of the structural walls, the partitions – which are essential for subdividing the space – must be especially resistant to impact, fire, and humidity, in addition to effectively mediating the acoustics between rooms and inside each one of them.
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Although any architectural project must ensure the safety and well-being of its occupants, this goal is especially pertinent for healthcare spaces, whose primary occupants are those prone to getting sick or worsening their initial condition. For this reason, its design must not only support medical procedures in their optimal conditions, but also ensure that the environment is kept sterile and clean at all times.
How do materials that fight the growth of pathogenic bacteria work? Is it possible to improve the hygiene and healthiness of an environment without neglecting the aesthetics of the space? We address this question by reviewing the case of Krion® solid surfaces, widely used in the healthcare sector but also in residential, commercial and office projects.
Designing for health and wellness is inherent to architecture. At HED, great architecture is rooted in real world outcomes that foster healthier spaces and environments. Today, the firm's healthcare team works to deliver progressive medical care facilities grounded in continuous learning, adaptation and experience. As the firm's National Healthcare Design Leader, Alberto Salvatore is working to inspire a Culture of Health across the United States.
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