DESIGNING HEALTH FACILITIES FOR 2025
LESSONS WITH RECENT BEST PRACTICES
HENNU KJISIKHarris Kjisik Architects and Planners
Helsinki University of TechnologyBudapest 4.9.2009
LESSON 1
LEARNING FROM PAST SUCCESSES
Ancient Greece
• ”Healing environment”
• Fresh air, daylight, views
• Fine arts, drama, physical exercize
• Activation of patients
• Generic buildings
Renaissance
• Relationship with the surrounding city
• Generality and modularity
• Architectural quality and sustainability
The Tuberculosis Sanatoria
• ”Healing environment”- fresh air, views
• Experimentation and innovation
• Social commitment of designers
The ”Heroic era” of the 1960s and 1970s
• Flexibility – adaptabilty- modularity• Technical innovations - interstitial floors,
”plug-in” solutions• Avant garde of general architectural trends • Utopias
LESSON 2
LEARNING FROM PAST MISTAKES
What’s been going wrong?
• Too many rules and regulations
• Sort-sighted visions – ”for me, now!”
• Insufficent understanding of lifecycle costs
• Too much specialisation and mystification
• Not enough high-quality architecture
Healing environment and Evidence-based Design
• Ethocentricity – tastes differ• No absolute truths exist about colour• Too much emphasis on irrelevancies• Many results are painfully obvious• Evidence-based design is by definition
backward looking
New procurement methods
• Bad experiences for the English PFI programme
• No time or money for innovation
• Only the big boys are allowed to play
• Is it possible to create an optimal care environment while maximising profits?
LESSON 3
LEARNING FROM WHAT IS GOING ON
NOW
Care – Cure - Core
• Varying requirements• Only 30% is ”hospital”, the rest is simply a
”building” • Relationship between specialised and
general space• Does everything need to be in the same
place?
Process-based design
• No conflict with ”healing environment”
• No conflict with patient-focused design
• There is no ”wasted space” – corridors are part of the process
New concepts
• Seamless service chain
• Disease management
• Patient-centred care
• Organisational models
New functional units
• The ”core hospital”
• Other new organisational models
• Community rehabilitation hospitals
• Day hospitals
• Knowledge centres
• Generalised wards and patient hotels
Flexibility AdaptabilityWall-lessness
• Flexibility• Agility• Adaptability• Transformability• Elasticity• Versatility
• Changeability• Convertibility• Repeatability• Modularity• Generality• Future-proof!
LEARNING FROM PRESENT BEST PRACTICES
• The ”monospace” at Arras• The public areas at Del Mar, Barcelona• The buzz and acitivity at Deventer• The urbanism of Cognacq-Jay, Paris
LESSON 4
LESSON 5
LEARNING THE TRICKS
Relationship with the urban environment
• Hospital as part of the city• Urban structure as a starting point of
design• ”Normalisation” of the patient environment
Better hospitals for better cities
• Demystification needed• Breaking the stronghold of ”specialists”• Attract better architects• Organise open architectural competitions• Make hospital design a ”sexy” subject
among young talented designers
LESSON 6
ORGANISE ARCHITECTURALCOMPETITIONS TO PROCURE
FRESH IDEAS!