Thinking about hospital design

Check out the series of articles in Healthcare Design – “Research in Practice” – written by healthcare design researchers at HOK, Nick Watkins and Erin Peavey.  It offers practical advice for anyone in a position to make decisions regarding the design of a hospital or healthcare facility.

• Research in Practice: Lesson 1 Testing same-handed and inpatient rooms with canted headwalls using a master database
• Research in Practice: Lesson 2  “You got a problem?” – “In this article, we explain the challenges of identifying the right problem and techniques for prioritizing problems.”
• Research in Practice: Lesson 3 “Testing innovation through simulations and mock-ups”
• Research in Practice: Lesson 4 –  “In this fourth article, we give a reason to celebrate and embrace hindsight with the post-occupancy evaluation (POE).”
• Lesson 5 is forthcoming – will be on the “ocean of opportunity afforded by POE and other design research.  We’ll critique the current state of design research in practice and then point toward the future.”

This … series … provides practical advice for successfully implementing research in architectural practice.  The articles’ material comes from the diverse and real-world experiences of researchers in practice at HOK.

Case studies from recently completed and ongoing healthcare design projects will illustrate important and unique ways research contributes to building project delivery, including renovations, guideline development, and greenfield projects. The position of the authors is that research is an essential service architecture firms provide in collaboration with clients, organizations, and academic institutions.

The service informs design decisions made during project delivery and leads to the best possible product.