Healthcare Architecture

Healthcare architecture is something that is frowned upon by many of the professors here at SIU. And why shouldn’t it be shunned in a school setting? Hospital design adheres to more codes than most professional architects care to learn, they’re too sterile to really get “down and dirty” in designing, and they’re associated with so many negative feelings already, why put students through a project that’s not any fun?

These are all valid points. Yes, there are lots of codes, yes they must be somewhat sterile, and yes, they have negative connotations. But wait, why are we here? Most students are asked that the first year they’re here, and most all of us give that same canned response “to improve something blah blah blah”. Alright, so let’s learn some codes. Being able to adhere to these “so restrictive” codes will not only make us better designers, but set us apart from other graduates entering the workforce.
“But they’re so sterile.” Yeah, they’re sterile, but that doesn’t mean white walls and padded rooms. Hospitals today are opening their windows, planting healing gardens and making use of daylight in a way that hospitals have never seen. And with environmental design so prominent, daylighting, natural ventilation and “greenery” are all making a huge “comeback” (for lack of a better word).
“But hospitals are just boxes of negative space.” Again, you’re right. But, going back to day one, aren’t we, as designers, challenging ourselves to improve spaces, to make them more enjoyable? Then why aren’t we doing it?

I was talking to some of the other grads about this same topic, and they response was that hospitals were bland, that they don’t give you the opportunity to design. There’s a trend in hospital design that notices that there’s not much difference on the patient side of things between a hospital and a hotel. Anyone reading this can think of multiples of awesome hotels, why not hospitals?

We’re here to learn to design so we can solve problems later on. The fact that this project type is actively avoided proves to me that it has problems. Can we do anything about it?
-- Jason Epley, M. Arch. student