Dochitect
Menu
  • Home
  • Dochitect Bio
  • The Physician-Architect Model
  • Articles & Publications
  • Presentations
  • In the News
  • Contact

Architecture and Bioethics: A new value proposition for health care facility designers

February 5, 2022 / Dochitect / Health Design & Ethics

Commentaries

Publication: Health Facilities Management Magazine
Publication Date: February 5, 2022
Authors: William J. Hercules, Diana C. Anderson, Stowe Locke Teti, David Deemer
View article

Excerpt:
“Johann Goethe, the 18th Century polymath, once remarked, “Architecture is frozen music,” by which he meant architecture interprets and expresses the values of its time — sometimes in a general epoch and sometimes at a very precise point. Experienced health care architects will appreciate this phenomenon, as current project drivers may have eclipsed those of decades past. It is in precisely this context that designers are studying the decisions and tradeoffs that result from these normative preferences.

In health care architecture, design is being increasingly employed to affect patient outcomes, alter specific behaviors and mediate the interactions of those within health care spaces. The advances in design science have progressed to the point that the built environment in health care can be considered akin to medical interventions. And, as with medical interventions, the nature, risks, benefits and alternatives should be disclosed to patients and caregivers.

The ethics of buildings and construction typically involve environmental impacts and social equity of the built environment. And while these are important, the focus of this article is on the health care setting itself and how it affects patients, families and health care teams. While some of these effects bear on individual patients, such that an informed consent process may be sufficient, others have a population-level impact that will persist for generations, well after the designer’s direct influence.

Focused work in medicine, neuroscience and psychology is being employed to several ends but, to date, there has been little investigation of these practices. This is because the elements affecting control are neither providers nor medications, but the health care facility building itself. Broadly, this raises issues about the nature of the built environment, what constitutes a medical intervention, what architecture is expected to do and, importantly, what obligations emerge from designers’ choices.”

Read the full article HERE.

Commentaries

A Book from Dochitect

The Dochitect’s Journal: A collection of writings on the intersection of Medicine and Architecture

Find out more here.

Search

Recent Articles/Publications

  • Society of Critical Care Medicine 2024 Guideline on Adult ICU Design

    February 21, 2025
  • When Deception Promotes Dignity: The Ethics of Using Illusion to Create Safe Spaces for Persons Living with Dementia

    February 14, 2025
  • Windows in the ICU and Postoperative Delirium: A Retrospective Cohort Study

    January 13, 2025

Recent Presentations

  • Frameworks for Health: Applying Clinical Models to Design

    February 14, 2025
  • January 23, 2025
  • University of Toronto Zeidler-Evans Annual Architecture of Health Lecture: Designing for Older Persons in a Transforming World

    October 17, 2024

Publication Type

  • Blog Post
  • Book
  • Book Chapter
  • Book Review
  • Commentaries
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Peer-Reviewed Design Guidelines
  • Peer-Reviewed Publications

Presentation Type

  • Conference Presentations
  • Keynote Presentations
  • Lectures
  • Panel Discussions
  • Podcasts
  • Webinars

Design Topics

  • Commentaries & Event Reviews
  • Design for Clinical Staff
  • Design for Critical Care
  • Design for Geriatrics
  • Design for Infection Control
  • Design for Palliative Care
  • Design for Patient Safety
  • Design for Resiliency
  • Design for the Future of Health
  • Dochitect in the News
  • Evidence-Based Design
  • General
  • Health Design & Ethics
  • The Physician-Architect Model

Archives

Follow Dochitect

Follow me on:

** ©2025 Dochitect :: Site by KPFdigital :: Admin Login

Cleantalk Pixel