Posts tagged ‘hospitals’
Motivation for Writing Jain Malkin’s Latest Hospital Design Book?
I was motivated to write my latest hospital design book, “A Visual Reference to Evidence-Based Design” after seeing three hospitals in a row that had been completed in the last couple of years and touted as the “ultimate in healing environments” and when I hear that, of course, my expectations are very high.
In all three cases when I personally toured the facilities, I was surprised to see that the design features and nice design amenities stopped in the lobby and, once I passed through the lobby, it was as if I were in a 1970s or 1980s hospital in that I saw a lot of white walls and a very institutional appearance. Except for the computers and monitors that were omnipresent, it was like stepping backwards in time.
How Far Evidence-Based Design Has Come
Schuster Heart Hospital, Dayton, OH
We are really the equivalent of a neonate as of 2008 when the book was published. Some would say this is an embryonic field, but I would say we are a little farther than that, but certainly not beyond neonate. You have to start somewhere and as I say in the introduction of the book, this is a snapshot in time because I think if we could look forward 10 years, evidence-based design will be something that will be commonplace. It’s probably going to take 10 years because it is really hard to do this type of research in the field and to be very thoughtful about it.
Jain Malkin
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