Healthcare Architecture: Why and How to Design Hospitals

Healthcare Architecture: Complexity

In healthcare, architecture becomes complex. It becomes the most interesting of all the disciplines. Of all the styles of architecture out there, it has a purpose. The purpose is that you are taking care of people.

People depend on hospitals and healthcare institutions to get well. As architects, we have a responsibility to design hospitals so that the public may get health care. People expect to move through the health care system in hospitals in a proper way. It means everything from the waiting room to the surgery room. It all comes together.

Comfort for Patients and Staff Alike

Healthcare architecture has to be not only pleasant to the user, but also the doctors and nurses. It’s for the medical professionals working there. This is because they spend so much time there. There should be facilities that will give the hospital personnel a level of comfort. They should be comfortable working there and want to come back. All that should come together and work in harmony. It is all important. This means everything from cafeterias to break rooms to laboratories.

Then, a designer needs to configure the infrastructure that a medical building requires. This is an important detail in healthcare architecture. The gases and liquids that go through the plumbing system throughout the building. The design configuration needs to maintain the proper energy and lighting requirements. You must care about temperature requirements and humidity. There are so many critical things required when designing a hospital.

Healthcare Architecture at DevelopmentOne

Here at DevelopmentOne, we are looking at designing more hospitals. There are companies that only specialize in healthcare architecture. Like them, we find these projects exciting and interesting. It is also because these types of projects make a difference in our community. They serve people that have healthcare needs. Healthcare architecture is a natural fit for us. It falls under the critical type of facility included in our mission statement.

Under the same token, it’s important for us to be able to take on projects that are going to be a natural fit. And that they will want to be a client for the long-term. It’s a critical business decision. You must have the training and the knowledge that you can use for the long run.

There has been a downturn in healthcare. It happens when healthcare architecture and construction has dropped for various reasons. So, it may not be the right timing for us to get into that sector yet. There also may be a glut of healthcare facilities in some areas, but not everywhere.

We hear different opinions about the market, so we are still exploring that. We are making serious considerations about whether we should get into healthcare architecture. The main reason for us to get in is that it appears to be a good fit for our type of work. At least from a design experience. It fits our mission statement of the kind of building we want to be part of. Healthcare buildings are critical facilities that we design here at Development One.