Commuting via public transport in London can be an unpleasant experience: overcrowded trains, bad-tempered fellow commuters, stuffy air – not to mention all hell breaking loose when trains get delayed (for whatever reason). So how does the daily commute feel when you are in special circumstances? To make life easier for pregnant women, Transport for…
A tweet in my timeline yesterday made me think about the relationship between buildings and their effects and implications, or in short: what buildings do and don’t do. Here is the original statement: Chinese game company’s HQ – beautiful + encourages serendipitous interactions = awesome wired.com/design/2013/01… — Ben Waber (@bwaber) March 17, 2013 Now, there…
I recently stumbled upon a series of photographs I took last summer, on a gloriously sunny day, visiting the Serpentine Pavilion 2012 in London, which was constructed by the architects Herzog de Meuron and the artist Ai Weiwei. It was nice to be reminded of summer in the current winter gloom, but I was also…
How healthcare can be delivered differently and how hospital buildings can play a crucial role in this has been subject of two earlier blog posts discussing aspects of flexible working in a hospital setting and the patient – caregiver interface. In this final and third post (for the time being at least…) covering Orbis Medical Centre in Sittard…
In an earlier post I have already described how a hospital in the Netherlands is attempting to revolutionising healthcare (by organising – among other things – a flexible working environment that actually works). In this post I want to elaborate on a different aspect of the hospital design of Orbis and investigate how the spatial…
I’ve recently had the pleasure to visit a hospital in The Netherlands on a research trip and was very impressed with the ways in which the Orbis Medical Centre in Sittard was organised – spatially as well as culturally. Orbis clearly aims at doing things differently in Healthcare and as such can teach us a…
I have recently thought a lot about evidence-based design and wanted to share some of these thoughts here. Doing things in an evidence-based way means systematically considering results from rigorous research when taking decisions in any professional practice: medicine, design, management, HR, education, policy and governance. It is meant to improve outcomes: better treatments and…
I cannot remember when it was or in which context exactly. But some time ago, somewhere, somehow, someone mentioned to me how odd it is that architecture is always photographed and presented under certain conditions: 1) perfect weather, i.e. blue skies, or alternatively: 2) at night or dawn, 3) no trace of usage, 4) no…
On twitter (thanks, Colin!) I recently stumbled upon a wonderful video produced by ARTE, in which the German designer Erik Spiekermann sketches his ideal office. It is fantastic to see someone sketch their ideas live (and funny as well to see Spiekermann struggle to draw a cool looking espresso machine – he later admits it…
I still clearly remember how odd I found the typical British lunchtime routines, when I first moved to London a few years ago. On my first day at work I joined my colleagues out of the office at lunch, only to find they just went across the road to the local Tesco supermarket to buy…
spaceandorganisation 