One thing is certain: Today’s architecture and design students are inspired and ready to bring new ideas and changes to the industry. Healthcare Design spoke with students at leading universities to find out what put them on their career path and what challenges and solutions they’ve already got up their sleeves. Here, we share profiles of these student.

Name: Anthony (A.J.) Prizzi

School: University of Kansas

Degree pursuing: Master of Architecture

What drew you to this career? During my sophomore year of college, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and hospitalized for a prolonged period of time. I learned in detail how the healthcare system works, but I started to look at the system from an architectural standpoint. I noticed a great amount of things that bothered me as a patient and that could have been designed better. This experience drew me closer to the field.

Name one skill that’s a must-have for any designer, architect, or planner today. Experiential design. I studied abroad in the fall of 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and learned a lot about experiential design. In studios in school, you’re taught about the technical aspects of design (building technology, wall sections, daylighting, etc.), but the focus on the experience of the user is sort of lost at times. The studio I took in Denmark really freed me of those technical items and allowed me to concentrate on the experience of the user.

If you could change one thing about the healthcare built environment, what would it be? The patient room. It’s the center of someone’s life when they’re in the hospital. As designers, we need to make those rooms the most comfortable and pleasing to the patient as we possibly can.

 

Name: Cullen David Smith

School: Texas A&M University

Degree pursuing: Environmental design

Name one skill you think is a must-have for any designer, architect, or planner today. Hand sketching.  This skill requires nothing more than a pen or pencil and something to write on, it carries personal thoughts from yourself, and can highlight what you find important in your ideas.

What’s one of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? Design development within larger facilities and hospitals. Many of these building designs can be interpreted by the patient as institutional rather than a place for healing. As a designer, I believe it’s important that these places allow the patient to feel comfortable in all aspects—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Share an idea you have for addressing or overcoming that problem. The space should reflect the most simplest of forms, nothing too complicated or overdone. In the patient rooms, the equipment shouldn’t overwhelm patients. (I personally prefer that they don’t see it at all.) The hallways shouldn’t seem like an endless maze, but a very simplistic flow. Absolutely no room should make them feel like they’re entrapped or hopelessly waiting; instead, the space should inspire them to heal and recover.

When you look to your future in this field, what’s one thing that excites you? The buildings and facilities that I intend to design will touch thousands of lives, and I hope to leave a positive impact on all of them in some way.

 

Name: Alexa Copeland

School: Kent State University

Degree pursuing: Master of Architecture, Master of Science in Architecture and Environmental Design

What drew you to this career? While we’ve made strides recently in the healthcare design field, I feel as designers we still get too focused on one problem or potential outcome, like patient-centered care or sustainability, and forget that these buildings need to satisfy and promote not only patient health, but environmental health, disease prevention, and medical advancements. The increasing number of features that we have to consider in the healthcare field are thrilling and challenging and allow for continual self-growth.

What’s one of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? The entangled facets of technology and, more importantly, information technology within the field. The problem posed is the overdesign of utilized spaces and underdevelopment of support or service space. Design is a critical tool to control operating cost, integrate many technological programs, and promote the large and rapidly growing healthcare systems.

Share an idea you have for addressing or overcoming that problem. I believe certain modular or standardized healthcare facilities would help and could be changed easier when new technologies are introduced, and for a much lower cost. The use of EBD is already making large impacts within the field, and I believe in the years to come, it will be used not only for patient care design possibilities but for the introduction of new technological trends and uses.

 

Name: Asma Sanaee

School: Clemson University

Degree pursuing: Master of Architecture and Health

What’s one of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? I believe architects in the healthcare industry try to design efficiently, and they don’t consider creativity in their design compared to general architects.

Share an idea you have for addressing or overcoming that problem. For one of our studio projects, we had to design a Federally Qualified Health Center located on the Southern Wesleyan University campus. The site had a residential setting, and I wanted to keep that for the new center. Inspired by the medical home concept, I applied three design strategies to create the image of a home for the community, including applying a gable roof structure, breaking down the big block building into smaller buildings, and creating transitional space between the indoors and outdoors. These design strategies helped harmonize the new medical center with its residential context.

If you could change one thing about the healthcare built environment, what would it be? Applying more creativity in healthcare design and going beyond fitting spatial programming into a box.

 

Name: Jessica Welch

School: Clemson University

Degree pursuing: Master of Architecture and Health

What drew you to this career? I love the mix of art, aesthetics, and creativity, as well as the scientific logic involved in medical programming and designing within a set of parameters. It takes the beauty and creativity of the art field and then adds another layer of complexity by nestling it within a logic puzzle and making it responsible for other things and people, rather than solely being the vision of the artist.

What’s o
ne of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? The growing number of elderly patients within the healthcare system. In fact, this demographic is not only growing rapidly but represents a very large number of hospital visits yearly. As the healthcare system changes and outpatient facilities are fracturing from the main hospitals, more and more facilities will need to address their needs by thinking about layouts, acoustics, materials, colors, and everything else through the eyes of seniors.

When you look to your future in this field, what’s one thing that excites you? Technology. Soon, medical help will be able to easily reach people in incredibly rural areas of the U.S. as well as remote areas in other countries. This means that healthcare environments will need to change with these advances in technology and will become smaller and less permanent. Hopefully, one day these advances will be quick enough to respond directly to disasters, convenient enough to bring care to small rural areas without doctors, and helpful enough to monitor chronic diseases from close to home.

 

Name: Samantha Lingenfelter

School: Kent State University

Degree pursuing: Master of Public Health and certificate in healthcare design

What’s one of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? Bridging the gap between operators and design professionals is important. Having hospital and facility directors become well versed in the capabilities and limitations of healthcare design could improve planning for future projects.

When you look to your future in this field, what’s one thing that excites you? The constant potential for growth and the increasingly changing technological and scientific advances that can alter the design and healthcare landscape rapidly. The opportunities for innovation are endless and coming from a non-design background, while making a more challenging work experience, could bring new perspectives and ideas.

If you could change one thing about the healthcare built environment, what would it be? The financial implications for wanting to institute change. There needs to be more support for improving healthcare environments since it’s not just an aesthetic issue. Safety is a major concern. Facilities should be encouraged to improve and have incentives for assistance.

 

Name: Victoria Antoinette Codrington

School: Texas A&M University

Degree: Graduated in spring 2015 with Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Design

What drew you to this career? I was born into this world not expected to live. Now standing at six feet tall, my medical history and the survival of my mother after my birth fully impacted and directed the passions I have in my career in healthcare architecture and design.

What’s one of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? We learn in school to create spaces that evoke emotion, bring healing, and enable memories, yet when it comes time to design, something is lost between the design intent and the software command. Healthcare architecture and design is not known to be avant-garde, but in some ways I think that it should be the most cutting-edge.

Share an idea you have for addressing or overcoming that problem. It’s essential for healthcare architects to not only be design-oriented but also have a deep understanding of people and place. Schools should be encouraging innovative and creative students to pursue healthcare architecture to bring it to a new level of efficiency graced with beauty.

If you could change one thing about the healthcare built environment, what would it be? The tunnel vision of money. Yes, it’s paramount to be realistic as an architect. But it’s also our job to understand what humans need in all seasons of life (birth to death), which we build for in healthcare, and sometimes that means spending a little bit more.

 

Name: Kirsten Staloch

School: Clemson University

Degree: Graduated in May 2015 with Master of Science in Architecture and Health

What drew you to this career? My mother and father were both diagnosed with cancer as I was growing up. For eight years, our family spent a lot of time in well-designed hospitals. These experiences provided me with a familiarity of hospitals and I was inspired to be part of the healthcare profession. When I started architecture school, I learned that many healthcare environments weren’t of the quality that I knew from my experience, and I became motivated to work and design facilities to promote better environments for future patients.

Name one skill you think is a must-have for any designer, architect, or planner today. Critical thinking. Designers should be able to think globally of a project and be able to troubleshoot circumstances for healthcare. A well-rounded mind adds the important functional patient and staff needs along with the knowledge for architectural quality that’s required for healthcare projects.

What’s one of the biggest issues you see the industry facing in 2015? The application of urban healthcare design and research to facilities in rural settings is a growing issue. Critical access hospitals and other health facilities in rural areas have their own struggles, and design opportunities must address these settings appropriately. Specific research and design development studies must be accomplished along with population health studies to thoroughly understand quality design for rural projects.