CONFERENCE: Architecture and Spaces of Healing

Abstract

In the twenty-first century life expectancy is greater than ever before, thanks to exponential growth in our ability to care for the elderly and to resolve physical problems in younger people.  We have medical science to account for this: non-invasive diagnostics, robotic key-hole surgery followed by rapid recuperation and advances in pharmacology are just some of the things that have underpinned these welcome developments.  Many old hospitals have been rebuilt – and new ones laid out on the outskirts of towns and cities, surrounded by car parks and standing as technological blocks symbolic of scientific progress.

At the same time, and especially on the back of the biggest global health crisis in a century, mental health has become a matter of huge concern, affecting not just the human activity but also physical well-being of millions.  For many, hospital cities are seen as dystopic worlds full of frightening technicality.  In this context, how we deploy architecture and how we shape the interior and exterior environments of buildings that provide healthcare are questions of high currency.  They are questions not just about how we manage health, going forward, but of how we manage public policy and improve society itself.

In 2021, it was announced in the UK that the Wolfson Economics Prize would be awarded for ideas towards planning and designing the hospital of the future, as a place that would radically improve patient experiences, clinical outcomes, staff wellbeing, and integration with wider health and social care.  Over 250 entries for the competition were received from organisations in 15 different countries.

One of the five finalists was a team led by the architect of well-known classical buildings of the past three decades in the UK and USA, John Simpson.  This has inspired the newly founded Ax:son Johnson Centre for the Study of Classical Architecture (CSCA) at the University of Cambridge to partner with the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden’s premier university for medical research, in organising the conference Architecture and Spaces of Healing.  This event will bring historical perspectives on architecture associated with medical health and wellbeing together with contemporary research and thinking about architectural and environmental design for places of healthcare.  The conference also includes a session on recent research concerning neuroscientific understandings of how buildings and their surroundings can affect physical wellbeing.