Healthcare Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

Architects: a.gor.a Architects Location: Mae Sot, Thailand Architect In Charge: Albert Company Olmo, Line Ramstad, Jan Glasmeier Project Year: 2012 Photographs: Franc Pallarés López

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The proposal for a Jinzhou New Area Medical Center by Design Initiatives is located as closest as possible to the existing wing of the hospital in order to shorten the routes and form one integrated complex with that existing wing. The architects believe that the everyday experience of the users is critically important for the hospital typology. They shifted and offset the four different wings so every room that needs it has an access to natural light and ventilation – something so rear in medical buildings and hard to get organized with an area of 185,000 m2. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Located in Berlin Zehlendorf, the Truman Plaza parallels the adjacent Clayallee and is part of a larger master plan that balances its historical urban context with its integration of a delicate onsite forest. Designed by Wiel Arets Architects, the project, which is currently in progress, includes offices, retail, health and sports facilities, which together form an urban setting situated around a central plaza within this leafy borough on the edge of Berlin. More images and architects’ description after the break.

Architects: SARAIVA + ASSOCIADOS Location: Aldeia de Juso, Cascais, Portugal Project Year: 2012 Photographs: João Morgado

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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…