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.
The idea explores the belief that the hospital of the future could fluctuate to adapt to a variety of future needs while also becoming a self-sufficient typology. It could be omnipresent and high tech, operate like a fulfillment center, rebuild itself from its own waste, grow its own medications, and become completely automatic.
The film is the culmination of a research project led by OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf together with Hans Larsson and Alex Retegan that began in 2019. “It is necessary to provide the hospital with a new definition,” said de Graaf.
“Our knowledge about the institution is becoming ever more developed, yet we seem further away than ever from imagining the right type of building for it. In exploring and visualizing a number of speculative futures, this short film hopes to offer a small contribution.”
Curator of the exhibition, Ethel Baraona Pohl, added, “The Hospital of the Future is a precious addition to the Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales exhibition. Instead of trying to give answers, it poses vital questions about the future of the city in terms of health, economy, space, and automation.”
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