ARchitectural design in healthcare
As an intern in a mid-size architectural firm, I have the privilege to contribute to the final product of a wide variety of projects. While I love having the opportunity to interact with projects throughout the design process, and I particularly enjoy the flexibility I have to jump around and get to be a part of many different projects, most of the work I'm able to do occurs relatively late in the design process. Since I still have much to learn, and countless years of experience to gain, before my skills are developed enough to contribute to conceptual design, I mainly participate in the documentation portion of design by drawing up architectural schemes using AutoCAD or three-dimensional building information modeling software like Revit. As a result, I very rarely have the opportunity to affect the design of a building at the conceptual or schematic level, which is when most of the spatial and functional planning occurs.
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This self-designed experiential project, in an effort to broaden my experience with these earlier stages of design, built upon my experiences as a co-op student at Stengel Hill Architecture by essentially re-designing one of the company's past projects. SHA, which focuses on design for the healthcare industry, is a leader among Louisville architects and has completed healthcare projects all over America. While my student project was completed entirely for a hypothetical client and was not a part of an ongoing project for SHA, I did rely on the same information that the architects at SHA started with when they originally did the project in 2006. The project included the addition of a 29,000 sf psychiatric unit on the empty third floor of an existing three-story hospital building. I maintained the original programming (list of required spaces) and the requirement that a portion of the floor would need to be retained as empty shell space for future expansion.
The design process for an actual psychiatric unit, while similar to the process that I had experienced at school, involved much more self-critique and problem-solving, as well as research into industry standards and required building codes. Since I was completing this project with as little assistance from my co-op supervisor as possible (to try to maintain as much ownership of the architectural ideas as I could), I had to constantly review certain design aspects and determine what could be simplified, transformed, shifted, or even removed. On top of this, I had to become familiar with the particular uses and functions of a psychiatric unit and identify industry standards for design. Much of what I learned came from a survey of authoritative guides and outlines published specifically for psychiatric unit design. From these resources, I quickly realized how critical, in all healthcare facilities but especially a psychiatric unit, patient comfort and relaxation was to the success of the design. In addition to patient comfort, however, psychiatric units require very specific spatial qualities for the staff to efficiently monitor patient activity and tend to patient needs. Through this project, I learned an immense amount about the characteristics of a practical psychiatric unit and was able to apply what I learned through a cyclic process of initial design, evaluation, and revision.
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To download a PDF of my reflective portfolio, click here:
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