For the Cosmos Foundation, environmental conscience, ecological conservation, and community focus form the foundations of land planning and landscape design within public infrastructure projects. We sat down with the foundation's project director, Felipe Correa, as well as foundation architects Valentina Schmidt and Consuelo Roldán, as they went in depth on the benefits, objectives, and motivations behind the Healing Gardens initiative.
Healthcare Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News
Healing Gardens: Nature as Therapy in Hospitals
Safdie Architects Designs a Garden-Hospital in Cartagena, Colombia
The Serena del Mar Hospital Center (CHSM) is the first hospital designed by Safdie Architects. Focusing on the human being, the concept revolves around the idea that "access to nature and natural light are vital in creating improved therapeutic experiences for patients, families and staff alike". Seeking to provide a sense of well-being that leads to better clinical outcomes, the hospital has started opening in phases to the public, earlier this year. The firm's first project in Latin America is not the only one, in fact, Safdie Architects are working on Qorner, a residential project under construction in Quito, Ecuador, and the Albert Einstein Education and Research Center in Brazil, to be inaugurated in early 2022.
Adjaye Associates Unveils Design for Ghana’s District Hospitals
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.
A Pandemic-Conscious Blueprint for Architecture
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.
SOM Designs New Public Health Laboratory in New York
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.
Symbiosis University Hospital and Research Centre / IMK Architects
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Architects: IMK Architects
- Area: 449930 ft²
- Year: 2020
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Manufacturers: Saint-Gobain, ACP, KK Engineering, LEGERO Lights, Nyati Engineers & Consultants, +5
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Professionals: The Axis Structural Consultants, Radiant Consulting Engineers, IMK Architects
Sora No Mori Healthcare Center / Tezuka Architects
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Architects: Tezuka Architects
- Area: 2996 m²
- Year: 2014
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Professionals: Ohno JAPAN, Okidenko Company Limited
Family Health Center on Virginia / MASS Design Group
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Architects: MASS Design Group
- Area: 25000 ft²
- Year: 2021
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Manufacturers: Herman Miller
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Professionals: LA Fuess, Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc, SmithGroup, Rogers O’Brien Construction
OB Kindergarten and Nursery / HIBINOSEKKEI + Youji no Shiro
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Architects: HIBINOSEKKEI, Youji no Shiro
OMA's New Film Explores the Hospital of the Future
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 Role of BIM in Public Projects: Using Technology to Achieve Efficiency and Comfort
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.
Spaces for Communication: Improving Connections and Care in the Built Environment
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.
3 Major Architecture Firms Propose School Buses and Shipping Containers for Accessible Testing Labs
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.
Alternative Healthcare Facilities: Architects Mobilize their Creativity in Fight against COVID-19
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.
How to Design Partitions for Healthcare Architecture: 9 Details of High-Performance Walls
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.
JCC Lab / Espaço Oficina
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Architects: Espaço Oficina
- Area: 200 m²
- Year: 2018
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Manufacturers: Grohe, Davide Groppi, Nordlux, Ségis, ZWCAD
Emergency Public Hospital in São Bernardo do Campo / SPBR Arquitetos
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Architects: ARQLAB, SPBR Arquitetos, [sic] arquitetura
- Area: 234998 ft²
- Year: 2016