Architecture for Health: At the Crossroads of Community and Humanity
John Steven and Michael Moxam, Stantec Architecture
At the Crossroads of Community and Humanity (Click here for the full paper)
Presentations should focus on the practical importance of environmental design qualities that reduce stress and promote health. The phrase “Architecture for Health” invokes the grand ambition to design built environments which are implicitly and expressively linked to personal and community health. How well this duality is addressed must be seen as an important measure of success in healthcare architecture and yet is the most difficult to achieve. Often, the approach to design considers “the whole building” in an attempt to address the overarching issues such as system design and sustainability but lack the consideration of human experience at the whole building level.
The rich human experience which should be at the heart of design for health can present a daunting array of concerns for different patient needs, care-giver satisfaction and operational efficiencies. An equally rich architectural response is required to empower, support and affect positive change in all the occupants.
The thesis put forward and explored in this session is that architecture is beautifully suited to bringing communities and people together in mutually supportive ways. The crossroads of community and humanity brings together these primary axes and generates frameworks, structures and hierarchies to make sense of the broader array of issues.
Specific models of patient care in the clinic and at the bedside have emerged through project work and abstract research. At earlier Design & Health conferences, the importance of community connections and a grounding of the healthcare architecture in the cultural and environmental context have been explored. More work is needed.
This session attempts to augment the research at the level of the individual patient and at the whole development level with an examination of the challenges and opportunities conjured up at the intersection of these two, often unreconciled dimensions.
Results/Methods Used
Using case studies from across North America, the linkage between architecture, community and humanity will be explored through design, construction and post-occupancy results.
Conclusions
While current models of delivery continue to push the design community toward standardisation and prototypical design for healthcare, creativity and innovation embedded within the core design approach should preserve the environmental design qualities that promote health and well-being.
Keywords: Models of Care, Human Experience, Community Healthcare
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