Healthcare Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

A few months ago, Deborah Sheehan, a Principal and Healthcare Leader at Cannon Design, was given the task of designing a prototype healthcare facility in Afghanistan, a country averaging about one hospital bed for every 2,400 people.

The challenges that Sheehan and her colleagues faced were considerable: limited construction materials, few skilled tradesmen, political corruption, tribal rivalries. But the resultant design solutions were smart, low-cost, and high-quality – they had to be, after all.

To a certain extent, Sheehan was expecting her team to come up with an innovative design; what she didn’t consider, however, was how applicable the design strategies would be to our own troubled system. In her article for HealthCare Design, “Beautiful, Broken, and Broke,” Sheehan outlines the 4 things the Afghanistan healthcare system does well, frankly better than the American, and what we could gain by applying them here…

Read after the break to find out the 4 design strategies employed in Afghanistan that could help our Healthcare System…

The Indigo Consortium—comprising schmidt hammer lassen architects, aarhus arkitekterne, Creo Arkitekter and engineering consultants NNE Pharmaplan, Brix & Kamp Rådgivende Ingeniører, Oluf Jørgensen Rådgivende Ingeniører and Royal Haskoning—has won the competition to design the New Aalborg University Hospital in Northern Jutland, Denmark – a project of € 551.5 million. The winning design merges the new hospital complex with the sloping landscape in a smooth transition from the existing Aalborg University. The concept of the new masterplan is to create an urban structure where streets, paths and courtyards form greatly diverse spaces, while referring to the human scale in both the buildings and the spaces in between. More images and a description from schmidt hammer lassen architects after the break.

Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) has started construction on their 1.4 million-square-foot master plan for The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. Demolition will commence on the existing parking garage at the south end of the hospital complex in order to clear the way for the new Orthopedic and Spine Center (OSC). The contemporary 332,000 square-foot building draws on the predominantly red brick character of the existing buildings and surrounding historic Mt. Auburn neighborhood, while providing a new public face on the south side of the hospital.

SOM strives to achieve LEED certification after completion in mid-2015. Continue after the break to learn more.

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