Adaptability in healthcare buildings: a perspective through Joseph Bracops Hospital

Frontiers in Medical Technology

Medical Technology

Joost Declercq¹  Giulia Scialpi² 

[1] Archipelago Architects, Brussels, Belgium;Archipelago Architects, Brussels, Belgium;Urban Metabolism Lab, , Louvain Research Institute for Landscape, Architecture, Built Environment, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium;

关键词: adaptability assessment model;    flexibility;    adaptability;    healthcare buildings;    building obsolescence;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmedt.2023.1199581

 received in 2023-04-03, accepted in 2023-06-26,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The healthcare sector has to face changes happening fast and often in an unpredictable way, such as epidemiological trends, the advancements of medical technology and processes or evolving social and economic needs. This results in a frequent need for infrastructures' retrofitting, with an increasing focus on the environmental impact of buildings, which have one of the highest embodied carbon footprints per square meter in the construction sector. As result, interest in healthcare buildings' adaptability is growing among researchers and practitioners. After an introduction on the research topic, a focus on the definition of adaptability and the existing assessment models is provided to address the following research question: to what extent are adaptability models effective to evaluate and orient the design of healthcare buildings? A quite varied use of the term adaptability has been found in the literature, as well as a new research trend aiming to establish a link with circularity. Moreover, most of the assessment models do not have a focus and have never been tested on the healthcare sector. An approach to circular and adaptable design is presented through the case study of the Joseph Bracops Hospital (Belgium), which has been submitted for evaluation by the Reversible Building Design protocol developed by Dr. Durmisevic. The evaluation highlights some of the current barriers in the design of adaptable healthcare facilities. Insights for future research are provided to encourage data-collection about the service life of healthcare buildings, so to understand if the adaptability of these infrastructures should be mainly monofuntional or transfunctional.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© 2023 Scialpi and Declercq.