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Hospital is a place to accommodate people when they are either physically or mentally weak. It helps supporting a stable society; nevertheless no one prefers living in a hospital. Not only its cold and unwelcoming appearance, but also the soulless mazes of corridors, and the anxiety-inducing smell scare people off. Exposing to such an inaesthetic environment for a monotonous long period of time, patients receive treatment miserably.
Hospital wards are heavy isolated. Patients are kept in wards with no contact to the outside world. The fortified hospitalization is inevitably resulted from over emphasis on hygiene in the society. The fear of spreading germs overrides the quality of space the patients deserve.
Research proved that patients are less drug-dependent and have more faith in the medical system when they are in a better environment. Art and landscape are usually seen as therapeutic elements that boost the healing process. However, those elements are usually placed out of the wards. Wards in general are strictly internalized and not benefited directly by any architectural design principles of rehabilitation.
The thesis is to criticise the current healthcare setting and to propose changes to the highly internalized ward space.
Example of nature only be viewed outside window of ward
Blacktown Hospital Plan
Bed as a unit

To redefine the ward space, hospital bed unit is one of the essences of the project. Patients with immobility will be the focus of my project. They stay on their beds for most of their time. Having different postures and settings, different curing activities are taken place on their beds. Wheeled bed also serves as a vehicle to transit between different rooms in the hospital. Through recording movements of the bed with time, the journey and experience of the patient can be visualised. It is hoped that the research gives a platform for a bottom-up design that is patient-oriented.
Connection
Roslyn Lindheim, a hospital design expert claimed that patients are subjected to “high levels of stress because of “in some way ‘out of connection’ & lack meaningful social and natural connectedness.”
Ward space deserves interaction to the outside world. To facilitate a better curing process of the patients, the ward should be engaged in a peculiar relationship to the urban context and nature. Patients’ psychological health should be weighed equally important as the hygienic environment.
Kensington Hospital, St Brides Bay, Pembrokeshire (Example of patients interacting with nature in 18th century)
Square of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, 1908 (Example of patients interacting with city in 18th century)
The Issue of Time
There are variables in hospitalization. Temporary hospitalization may be provided in times of pandemic. The design should be able to respond to the fluctuating aspect of hospitalization. It may end up with a sustainable design with flexibility to changes.
Precedents
1. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, by Alvar Aalto, 1932
Alvar Aalto furniture design specially for tuberculosis patients
2. Le Corbusier’s unrealised Venice hospital, 1963
Le Corbusier Venice Hospital as an extension to city road and canal network, Section showing each ward space with sunlight penetrating in
Outline of Research and Design Method:
Contextual studies – Current situation
A. Patients Experience
- Research on hospital layout-the functional aspect of hospital
- Research on hospital bed setting
- Research on patients’ experience by recording hospital bed’s movement with time
B. Hygiene limitation
- Research on how disease transfer
- Research on the spatial requirement of minimum separation
Design –Proposing an adaptable System to a new way of hospitalization
A. Site investigation:
- Research on a suitable urban context for hospitalization
- Preferably buildings can be renovated for hospitalization
B. The System
- Target group: the immobile patients
- The Equilibrium of hygiene and connection: A new interior and exterior relationship, public and private relationship possibility introduced into the patient’s experience
- Normal hospitalization, how it interact with the city in different time of a day?
- In times of pandemic, will there be any temporary responses from the system?
- Supporting branches: Designing the supporting branches for patients’ experience, e.g. nurses and doctor resting place, body-checking stations
- Material: therapeutic elements to respond to patients psychological needs
Human movement with space
Potential ways of showing space of time
Annotated Bibliography
1. p.107-113 on Prognostications/ Innovation in Hospital Architecture by Stephen Verderber
2. Changing Hospital Architecture, edited by Sunsand Prasad, 2008
3. Healing Gardens Therapeutic benefits and design recommendations, by Clare Cooper Marcus and Marni Barnes, 1999
4. The Medicalization of Architecture, by Canadian Centre for Architecture, Lars Muller Publishers, 2012
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