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Healthcare Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

To Design for the Elderly, Don't Look to the Past

When the world undergoes major changes (be it social, economic, technological, or political), the world of architecture needs to adapt alongside. Changes in government policy, for example, can bring about new opportunities for design to thrive, such as the influx of high-quality social housing currently being designed throughout London. Technological advances are easier to notice, but societal changes have just as much impact upon the architecture industry and the buildings we design.

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AD Classics: Venice Hospital / Le Corbusier

This article was originally published on August 15, 2016. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

Le Corbusier made an indelible mark on Modernist architecture when he declared “une maison est une machine-à-habiter” (“a house is a machine for living”). His belief that architecture should be as efficient as machinery resulted in such proposals such as the Plan Voisin, a proposal to transform the Second Empire boulevards of Paris into a series of cruciform skyscrapers rising from a grid of freeways and open parks.[1] Not all of Le Corbusier’s concepts, however, were geared toward such radical urban transformation. His 1965 proposal for a hospital in Venice, Italy, was notable in its attempt at seeking aesthetic harmony with its unique surroundings: an attempt not to eradicate history, but to translate it.

AD Classics: Venice Hospital / Le Corbusier - Hospital , FacadeAD Classics: Venice Hospital / Le Corbusier - Hospital AD Classics: Venice Hospital / Le Corbusier - Hospital AD Classics: Venice Hospital / Le Corbusier - Hospital AD Classics: Venice Hospital / Le Corbusier - More Images+ 2

AD Classics: Prentice Women's Hospital / Bertrand Goldberg

This article was originally published on September 28, 2013. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

Hospital buildings, with their high standards of hygiene and efficiency, are a restrictive brief for architects, who all too often end up designing uninspiring corridors of patient rooms constructed from a limited palette of materials. However, this was not the case in Bertrand Goldberg's 1975 Prentice Women's Hospital. The hospital is the best example of a series of Goldberg-designed medical facilities, which all adhere to a similar form: a tower containing rooms for patient care, placed atop a rectilinear plinth containing the hospital's other functions.

AD Classics: Prentice Women's Hospital / Bertrand Goldberg - Hospital , Facade, Arch, CityscapeAD Classics: Prentice Women's Hospital / Bertrand Goldberg - Hospital , Beam, Arch, FacadeAD Classics: Prentice Women's Hospital / Bertrand Goldberg - Hospital , Facade, CityscapeAD Classics: Prentice Women's Hospital / Bertrand Goldberg - Hospital , FacadeAD Classics: Prentice Women's Hospital / Bertrand Goldberg - More Images+ 2

Read on for more about this masterwork of humanist brutalism...

Hospitals and Health Centers: 50 Floor Plan Examples

A floor plan is an interesting way to represent and approach the functional program of hospitals and health centers, where the complexity of the system implies the need for specific studies of the distribution and spatial organization for proper health care.

From our published projects, we have found numerous solutions and possibilities for health centers and hospitals depending on the site's specific needs.

Below, we have selected 50 on-site floor plan examples that can help you better understand how architects design hospitals and health care centers.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop Presents Concept Designs for Series of Hospitals in Greece

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) has presented their preliminary design approaches for three hospitals in Greece. Part of a €200 million ($240 million) healthcare initiative launched by the Greek government, RPBW will produce designs for a General Hospital of Kromotini, a Children’s Hospital in Thessaloniki, and the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens which will also form part of the University’s Faculty of Nursing.

The three schemes are united by a “people-centric” approach, with each project seeking to integrate into their natural environments with an emphasis on natural light. The projects will follow the design ethos of the Stavros Niarchos Foundational Cultural Center by RPBW, completed in 2016.

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Manuel Herz to Design Curvilinear Expansion of Rural Senegal Hospital

Manuel Herz has been chosen to design the expansion of the Tambacounda Hospital in rural Senegal, conceived and funded by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and American Friends of Le Korsa.

The extension is viewed as an urgent project to address overcrowding in the vital facility, with the demands of 20,000 annual patients resulting in hot, overcrowded communal spaces, and children sharing beds in wards. The Foundation described Manuel Herz as the “unanimous choice” with an approach showing “a mix of visual flair, practical understanding, and profound humanitarianism.”

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Reebok Teams Up With Gensler to Turn Gas Stations Into Fitness Hubs

The gas station does not usually catch one’s fancy. It is a ubiquitous building, one built primarily for function instead of for pleasure or community. We see them all the time but barely give them a second glance unless the need arises – and then, we get our fuel, and we are out of the station in minutes.  

With the smell of gasoline and the usual convenience store spread, these service stations do not exude any particular sense of wellness. Neither have their flat, perennial structures captured the imagination of architects – until now. 

Reebok and Gensler are the first to catch on to the enormous potential of the common gas station. These buildings sit on prime real-estate all over the country, from highways to local streets. In their new collaborative project, “Get Pumped,” the global architecture firm and the fitness brand are coming up with a plan to re-do the gas station as we know it.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Granted Approval on St Mary’s Hospital Project in London

The Westminster City Council has granted planning permission for the New Outpatients Building at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London. Designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the 8-story building will consolidate outpatient services currently spread across 40 different locations into one comprehensive care center, increasing comfortability and ease-of-use for both patients and employees.

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3XN Wins Competition for Copenhagen Children's Hospital with 'Playfully Logical' Design

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Atrium. Image Courtesy of 3XN

Danish practice 3XN’s ‘Playfully Logical’ proposal has been selected as the winner of a competition to design the new National Children’s Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, emphasizing the power of play as an integral part of medical treatment.

Working with Architema Architects, Niras, Rosan Bosch Studio and Kirstine Jensens Tegnestue, 3XN’s scheme for BørneRiget takes the form of two hands grasping together to support the various aspects of pediatric care. The hospital has been designed to allow children to stay close to their families while maintaining as much of a regular day-to-day routine as possible.

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Foster + Partners Breaks Ground on new Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania

Foster + Partners has announced the groundbreaking of a new $1.5 billion hospital for the University of Pennsylvania’s West Philadelphia Penn Medicine campus. Working in a multi-firm collaboration called PennFirst (with healthcare design firm HDR, engineers BR+A and construction management teams from L.F. Driscoll and Balfour Beatty), the architects have designed a 16-story facility known as “The Pavilion” to house 500 private patient rooms, 47 operating rooms and a total of 1.5 million square feet of healthcare space.

Steven Holl Architects Unveils Plans for Cloud-Like Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai

Steven Holl Architects has revealed plans for a new Cultural and Health Center to be located in Shanghai’s Fengxian District. Set into the public landscape, the two buildings will serve as a “social condenser” aimed at integrating the community of surrounding housing blocks together into a park along the Punan Canal.

Steven Holl Architects Unveils Plans for Cloud-Like Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai - Garden, FacadeSteven Holl Architects Unveils Plans for Cloud-Like Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai - FacadeSteven Holl Architects Unveils Plans for Cloud-Like Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai - Stairs, Handrail, FacadeSteven Holl Architects Unveils Plans for Cloud-Like Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai - Image 9 of 4Steven Holl Architects Unveils Plans for Cloud-Like Cultural and Health Center in Shanghai - More Images+ 25

These Architectural Playscapes Provide Therapy for Children with Autism

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© Sean Ahlquist, University of Michigan

This article was originally published on Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Architecture for Autism Could Be a Breakthrough for Kids With ASD."

Good architects have always designed with tactile sensations in mind, from the rich wood grain on a bannister, to the thick, shaggy carpet at a daycare center. It’s an effective way to engage all the senses, connecting the eye, hand, and mind in ways that create richer environments.

But one architecture professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is working on a tactile architecture-for-autism environment that does much more than offer visitors a pleasing and diverse haptic experience: It’s a form of therapy for kids like 7-year-old daughter Ara, who has autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Steven Holl on Combining Heritage and Modern Healthcare Design at His Maggie's Centre Barts

This article was originally published by Metropolis Magazine as "Q&A: Steven Holl."

For twenty years, Maggie's Centres have been providing cancer treatment to patients within thoughtful, beautiful spaces designed by renowned architects like Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid. Steven Holl's Maggie's Center Barts, located adjacent to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in central London, is slated to open at the end of this year. While the design has been somewhat controversial in the UK due to its contemporary nature, the cancer care facility incorporates innovative lighting, sustainable materials, and a compact structure in a way that is—according to the architect—entirely complementary to its historical neighbors. We spoke with the renowned architect to learn more about the project and what it has meant to him over the past four years.

7 Projects Announced as Winners of AIA National Healthcare Design Awards

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected seven recipients of the 2016 AIA National Healthcare Design Awards, given to the year’s best projects in healthcare building design and healthcare design-oriented research. Projects were selected for displaying “conceptual strengths that solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns as well as the requisite functional and sustainability concerns of a hospital.”

The award is given in four categories: Category A: Built, Less than $25 million in construction cost; Category B: Built, More than $25 million in construction cost; Category C: Unbuilt, Must be commissioned for compensation by a client with the authority and intention to build (No projects were selected in this category this year); and Category D: Innovations in Planning and Design Research, Built and Unbuilt.

Read on for the list of winners.

White Arkitekter’s "Home for Heroes" Breaks Ground in Sweden

Children suffering from severe illness often leave their homes and families to receive the necessary care. In most of Sweden, accommodations for the relatives of the ill are built in the vicinity of the larger pediatric clinics.

The largest of these accommodations will be built in Umeå, Norrland. Named “Hjältarnas Hus” or "Home for Heroes," the building was designed by White Arkitekter and broke ground on Friday, March 4.

dRMM Submits Plans for a New Maggie's Centre in Oldham

London-based practice dRMM have submitted plans for a new Maggie's Centre in Oldham, a metropolitan area north east of Manchester. Maggie's, a UK charity famed for its cancer care centres, is also well known for commissioning world-renowned architects to design their spaces. This latest proposal will be sited within the grounds of the Royal Oldham Hospital, becoming the second centre of its kind in Greater Manchester following Foster + Partners' current project in central Manchester.

Heatherwick Wins Planning for New Maggie’s Centre in Leeds

Heatherwick Studio has received planning permission to build a new Maggie's center on the St James' University Hospital grounds in Leeds. Aiming to harness the therapeutic effect of plants for the benefit of the center's cancer patients, the building was designed as a series of stepped "planters" that intertwine to form a unique and restorative layout of inside, outside, private and public space.

"The site is a small patch of green surrounded by the huge volumes of the existing hospital buildings. Instead of taking away the open space we wanted to make a whole building out of a garden," said Thomas Heatherwick in a press release. 

THERMAL SPRINGS POOLS POÇA DA DONA BEIJA / M-Arquitectos

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