Central Regional Hospital: Design

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Schematic Design - Central Regional Hospital

I have begun the design process for Central Regional Hospital. I know that the spaces need to be calming and therapeutic without being sterile or cold. They certainly need to be better suited for children and adolescents, who will be using the spaces while in the care of the staff. I have been incorporating flowing forms into my design to offset the hard, harsh lines of the interior as it was built.

Concept Exploration

Concept is a quest for the generator of the project. The basic question that any concept exploration should address is - what does the space desire to be? Here are some questions you must seek to answer that should get you started in framing a concept. 

• What does the space at the Central Regional Hospital building want to be?

• Warm
• Inviting
• Therapeutic
• Versatile
• Nonthreatening

• What should its identity be?

• A therapeutic, safe environment. 

• What is the type of experience I want to provide to the users and the visitors of the facility?

• I want the users and visitors to not feel like they are in such an institutional setting while still providing a sense of structure. I feel that there needs to be a balance of familiar as well as unfamiliar so that clients of the hospital do not get too comfortable and yet are relaxed enough to get the most from their treatment and time spent there. As it stands now, the client rooms seem sterile and prison-like. They are so plain and understimulating that they seem, to me, to cause almost the opposite effect of what is intended. The rooms need softened and warmed up in some way, with texture and/or color. I want the clients of the hospital to feel like this is a safe place and a place they can open up in. 

• What are the specifics on the existing site that I want to engage in the design process and how should I go about accomplishing it?

• I think that what needs to be addressed the most is providing a more warm, therapeutic environment for all who enter the spaces- staff, clients, and visitors. This can be accomplished though colors and textiles and other kinds of texture. The spaces also need more visual interest, which can be expressed through color, raising/lowering ceiling heights, textures, material choices, floor material choices, etc. 

assignment

A conceptual understanding of the opportunity

• Articulation of the essential nature of the design opportunity as you understand it.

• This design opportunity challenges us to create a warm, therapeutic, inviting environment in a restricted environment. 

Consider

• Consider issues of size, scale, proportion and the human presence.

• For children, scale definitely needs to be addressed. More things need to be to a child’s scale- places of lower ceiling heights, smaller spaces, etc. 

• Consider circulation, arrival, and path. 

• Patients circulate from their rooms to the activity areas, smaller group rooms, visitation rooms and further outward to the treatment mall and classrooms. 

• Consider appropriate materials, form, and image.

• Appropriate materials cannot hang, be sharp, be thrown, be used as weapons to harm others or oneself. They cannot be overstimulating. Spaces cannot be too small to bring on claustrophobia. Spaces cannot be too large and unmanageable. Staff visibility is essential but clients should not be able to see everything.