Many factors contribute to the wellness and sustainability of our people and our environments, including culture, community, lifestyle and design. The contemporary hospital’s place in our communities reaches past the confines of single-use, isolated institutions with finite lifespans. Hospitals are rapidly evolving into place-based, mixed-use facilities embedded into their environmental and social ecosystems, possessing both the opportunity and the responsibility to become community hubs for sustainable living. As architects, addressing this sea change requires a three-pronged approach to sustainability, weighing the environmental impacts alongside the economic and social aspects.
Environmental sustainability is the most urgent and clearly-defined tenet – has the design reduced or eliminated its effect on the environment? A sustainable hospital is one which stands the test of time through quality materials, technology and construction practices, whilst moving flexibly into the future through adaptable functional design which can be reconfigured, repurposed or recycled over time.
Hospitals also need to demonstrate fiscal responsibility in capital and whole-of life costs as well as material procurement practices. However, economic sustainability extends far beyond the project budget - it considers the hospital’s role in providing care to all segments of society, elevating quality of life for all which, in turn, directly impacts the health of the community. When people are healthy the economy is healthy.
Socially sustainable design represents our responsibility to design for the poorest and most vulnerable, the youngest and the oldest. Sustainability, through this lens, involves the creation of ‘places’ with a sense of physical and emotional security, accessibility, opportunity and well-being; providing what each member of our community requires to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.
Drawing from B+H’s international healthcare work, this presentation will examine and present examples of sustainability from the environmental, social and economic dimensions. Passive design strategies, such as naturally ventilated wards, photovoltaic panels, green roofs, and passive shading/cooling, will demonstrate how buildings can give back more than they take from their environments while reducing lifecycle costs. Socially, we will present new typologies that reintegrate recovering patients back into their communities by reimagining the traditional six-bed ward into a homelike environment that empowers elderly patients to make a return to independent living. Through these precedents we will demonstrate how sustainable healthcare design and planning can influence the wellness of a society through the creation of durable and socially responsive hospitals that form the bedrock of our communities.
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