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Healthy Hospital Architecture |  |
April 3, 2007
by Alayna Buckner
Design Programs Columnist
Imagine walking through the halls of a hospital. Look to the left and right. Peek inside the patient lounge. What do you see?
Chances are you're not seeing a cozy loft or an indoor garden. No, you're probably imagining green tiles, institutional couches, fluorescent lights, and stale coffee in Styrofoam cups. That's right: hospital architecture designs are sterilized, cold, and ugly.
Well, that's changing.
Maggie's Centres
A new trend in hospital architecture began 10 years ago in the UK, sparked by Maggie Keswick Jencks and her husband, Charles Jencks, an architecture critic. Hospitalized with breast cancer, Maggie noticed the depressing influence of hospital architecture.
The Jencks envisioned a better cancer ward with small, inviting centers offering non-medical care, including information and psychological support.
The first center was opened in 1996 and now serves 3,000 visitors annually. With four of Maggie's centers already built and 13 underway, this trend in architecture is worth watching.
The Architecture and Interior Design of Maggie's Centres
Maggie's Centre architects are charged with creating a domestic, imaginative, and optimistic atmosphere with safe and welcoming design that facilitates both community and privacy, not loneliness.
Frank Gehry's design in Dundee, Scotland, is described as "a clubhouse for cancer patients" and has a 30-foot tower called a lighthouse, plus a small library, communal kitchen, therapy room, and private meeting area.
The center in London's Charing Cross Hospital boasts a floating roof and inner courtyards, a two-story common kitchen, and a wall of insulating trees.
Charles Jencks demands inspirational architecture and interior design for Maggie's Centres. And why not? Great architects can create stunning architecture designs for small but meaningful buildings as well as elaborate office buildings. If this inspires you, consider studying drafting and architecture yourself. Maybe you can build the next Maggie's Centre.
Sources
About the Author
Alayna Buckner loves to admire the simple details of townhouse architecture in Washington, DC, where she lives.
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