Three new facilities are planned for the cities of Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta in Greece. The largest of the three in Thessaloniki will be a dedicated children’s hospital. Not only will these new hospitals bring much-needed modernization to underserved areas that have suffered economically since the country’s government debt crisis started in late 2009, they’ll also act as templates for state-of-the-art hospitals throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Developed as part of the international SNF Health Initiative, the hospitals will focus on equity, serenity, dignity, and comfort just as much as high-quality medical care.

This philosophy is rooted in three core values: the therapeutic power of nature, environmental sustainability, and medical excellence paired with holistic patient-centric care. That translates to spaces and practices that provide privacy, personalized care, direct connection to the outdoors, and room to grow so hospitals can avoid stagnancy by keeping up with changing needs and ideas. Piano’s designs are all similar in their appearance, featuring long rectangular buildings topped with overhanging flat roofs covered with solar panels. These visible structures host clinical centers, while other buildings tucked into the surrounding hillsides contain labs and other technical facilities.

When SNF first started researching this project, they spoke to the local communities where the hospitals are being built and asked them what they’d like to see included in the design. They asked for healing gardens, upper-floor patios, art on display, and recreation areas along with green campuses ringed with trees instead of massive parking lots. In fact, the landscape was designed specifically so that patients can see trees from the windows of their hospital rooms. Plentiful windows and skylights let natural light come pouring into all spaces, including intensive care units and operating rooms.

Healing gardens have become more common in medical settings in recent years, mostly for the benefit of patients. But doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff will also benefit from the ability to walk out into a lushly planted outdoor space to take much-needed breaks from the stress of their jobs. Family members waiting to hear news of a patient’s prognosis or to comfort them after a procedure can experience a sense of relief in these spaces, complete with areas for kids to play, as an alternative to dim, institutional lobbies.

“The basic idea in the tree projects is, to give shape to facilities, which are totally immersed in nature, in order to foster a quiet, relaxing environment for patients and their relatives, but also for doctors, nurses, and all staff,” says the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. “Nature has in fact a ‘therapeutic’ role in every patient’s rehabilitation process, as in the ancient Asklepeion.”

The post Renzo Piano Integrates Therapeutic Gardens into 3 New Hospitals in Greece first appeared on Dornob.

The young patients of Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC) experienced a little holiday cheer as they got to drive the sporty “Shogo” from their hospital rooms to other parts of the facility.

“Creating Shogo was a labor of love for a group of Honda associates, including team members who…truly understand the importance of easing the stress of a stay for young patients. Over 30 Honda associates poured their passions into bringing Shogo to life, and all in addition to their daily responsibilities, including many long nights and weekends,” said Hundy Liu, Manager of National Automobile Advertising at American Honda Motor Co., Inc. in an interview with Muse.

Officially named Project Courage, Honda’s mini hospital car initiative grew out the company’s longstanding relationship with CHOC. Every year since 2016, the motor company has provided a holiday experience for the facility’s patients, utilizing virtual reality technology to create things like a “Candy Candy Lane” and “The Magic Snow Globe.”

Shogo had been in the works for several years before gracing the CHOC patients. The designers note that “the idea originated in 2019 within the Honda marketing team, and Shogo was created more than a year ago, but the pandemic slowed its trials and introduction.”

The miniature vehicle was built to serve children between the ages of four and nine, giving them the ability to drive using power controls integrated into the steering wheel. Caregivers have the ability to adjust the speed from one to five miles per hour, and they can also manually move the car with the push bar when needed.

For patient comfort and fun, the electric ride-on also comes with a toy bucket in front to bring favorite items along, a horn that plays several sounds, including encouraging messages, and a license plate slot for displaying the patient’s name.

“As someone who spent time in the hospital as a young child, I really wanted the number one objective of our Honda team in developing Shogo to ease the hardship of a hospital stay by providing kids a lasting positive memory about that experience,” said Randall Smock, the company’s Senior Exterior Designer of Vehicles in a recent press release. “Every element of Shogo was designed to accommodate different needs of young children, making it as easy as possible to get in and out, simple to drive, and for the entire experience to leave them a bit happier.”

Shogo, a term based on a Japanese word and intended to mean “soaring into the future,” also facilitates the medical needs of transporting patients. The back includes an IV pole and pump system holder, and the all the surfaces are soft and smooth for easy sanitizing.

“Our team greatly appreciates Honda bringing innovative solutions that support our ongoing commitment to providing an exceptional patient experience and infusing joy into a patient’s stay,” said Brianne Ortiz, manager of the Cherese Mari Laulhere Child Life Department at CHOC. “We were impressed from the beginning when we first saw Shogo, and by the Honda team’s dedication in collaborating with our staff to ensure a vehicle that is perfect – and safe – for our young patients.”

Before its release, the Honda team built a test course inside its research & development facility that replicated the CHOC hallways to make sure the car would be feasible navigating around real patients and staff.

Concluded Liu, “Honda is a mobility company, first and foremost, and creating Shogo demonstrates our pursuit in helping to fulfill the vision of our founder, Soichiro Honda, who said, ‘The purpose of technology is to help people.’ The goal is seeing the smiles on these children’s faces and demonstrating the impact this type of vehicle can have on bettering the lives of these children.”

The post Honda’s Mini Electric Car Brings Cheer to Children’s Hospital first appeared on Dornob.

The design doesn’t represent any ordinary tree shape, though. If it seems extraordinarily minimal and fluid, that’s because it’s based on the shape of the Schuylkill River, which flows 135 miles from Pottsville to Philadelphia, where it joins the Delaware River. To that end, the design is meant to represent life within the hospital and the city, and the connection between nature and medical science.

“My approach to this piece is to create something that is uplifting, that has a sense of wonder and beauty,” Lin says. “I want to make you aware of your surroundings in the pavilion, in this beacon of scientific advancement, connecting you to the physical and natural world around you while symbolizing the very essence of life — DNA.”

Supported by a hidden steel tree-shaped structure, the sculpture will be covered in hundreds of glass beads that will reflect the sunlight streaming in through adjacent windows. It will be installed before the pavilion opens in October 2021. In progress for several years now, construction on the complex was accelerated last year in order to open 150 patient rooms that could serve as potential surge space through the pandemic. When the full hospital opens, it will offer 47 operating rooms and 500 private patient rooms.

“Art and design can be a transformational element of a patient’s experience. It was important to select pieces for HUP East that will convey a sense of peace and healing in this new landmark for exemplary care, as well as a welcoming, vibrant atmosphere for our patients, families, and staff,” says Regina Cunningham, PhD, RN, Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

“Maya Lin thoughtfully designed a sculpture that connects the fundamental elements of life and science to our health system and the Philadelphia community, and we look forward to its installation as we prepare to open the doors of our new patient pavilion.”

Maya Lin surged into the public eye at 21 years old during her senior year at Yale University, when she won a nationwide competition to create a design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Completed in 1982, her minimalist monument design was controversial at the time, but is now widely considered one of the most powerful memorials in the world. The polished V-shaped granite wall is inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 soldiers killed or missing in action.

Lin’s later designs have included a monument to the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama, a water-themed 1993 monument commemorating women at Yale, and a series of seven art installations along the Columbia River in Oregon for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition (2000).

The post Maya Lin to Install New “DNA Tree of Life” Sculpture at Pennsylvania Hospital first appeared on Dornob.

The latest model, titled “Sunny,” is an enclosure made of crisp white shelves, teeming with tactile toys and soothing greenery. Doors on the outside of its built-in shelving units can open or close, depending on the level of desired connection with the outside world. The floor is lined with a plush, sun-drenched yellow cushion while the ceiling is a piece of intricately carved wood, itself featuring a pattern crafted after those at the ancient Hindu temple of Kopeshwar. The Sunny also comes equipped with a light that shines up at that complex configuration, casting a kaleidoscope of delicate shadows all around the room.

For this construction, the company needed to carefully survey the needs of psychiatric pediatric patients. “CUBA BUBA is aimed at improving a person’s psycho-emotional state. [The module] is like going out into another friendly and cozy reality,” says the charity’s founder Vlada Brusilovskaya, who adds that “we base our work on the principles of evidence-based design; a direction initiated by Swedish researcher Roger Ulrich. In the process of work, we study the issues more deeply, adapt the general principles to the local needs of our hospitals, and focus on our own observations and feedback of doctors and staff.”

Valery Kuztnetsov, designer and founder of Décor Kusnetsov, explains how the Sunny helps these particular sick kids, saying that “people with mental disorders tend to shut themselves in. The job of doctors, teachers, and hospital staff, among other things, is to keep them in touch.The Cuba-Buba Sunny module is an emotionally friendly environment that produces new experiences. Sitting inside, you can build fantasy cities for baby dolls. Or you can just lie down, dream, feel safe, and get in touch with the universe. In the middle of the vault, there is a large round hole that lets in rays of light. Thanks to this solution, a certain sacredness has also appeared in our module. Not literally, but on a deep emotional level.”

The company has already created five other sensory centers for other Ukrainian hospitals. The CUBA BUBA #1 and #3 have touchable tiles running up the exterior walls, made of finger-happy materials like seashells, nuts, rocks, textured fabric, and glass beads. The inside has cubby benches and a pint-sized table for games and puzzles.

The CUBA BUBA Matrix installation is made entirely of white peg boards, made for children to stitch patterns in the walls and seats with thick, colorful cords. And the CUBA BUBA #4 is a simple wood outline of a house, with wind-chime like tubes lining one side for patients to swing and push.

All of the CUBA BUBA stations are free-standing constructions that can be set up in any common area to fashion a room within a room. They are roughly 8 feet long by 5.5 feet wide and 7.5 feet tall and made of natural substances like pressed wood, stone, metal, and cotton.

Posting on Facebook, the company says that it hopes its latest conception will produce the healing feeling of a “soft, cozy morning surrounded by toys and no limitations” for “the little ones undergoing treatment at the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital.”

The post CUBA BUBA Brings “Sunny” Respite to Children in Ukrainian Hospitals first appeared on Dornob.

Architecture and design studio MAGICARCH thinks so. Led by María José Marcos and based in Spain, the firm has created paradigm-shifting interiors for traumatology and physiotherapy clinic Nexus8 in Murcia, southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. It’s safe to say you’ve never seen a doctor’s office that looks quite like this.

Images of the 2,551-square-foot space call to mind theater sets, sci-fi films, and children’s playgrounds much more than they do rehab clinics. Each room features unexpected geometries and a combination of bright and pastel mood-shifting colors designed to soothe or stimulate. The designers wanted to break the stereotypes associated with conventional clinics, focusing instead on the notion of “care” and all it can look like.

It may sound like pseudoscience, but colors and emotions actually are closely linked. Though our individual perceptions of color aren’t universal, and can vary depending on our cultural backgrounds and personal experiences, studies have shown that certain colors can be linked to specific physiological reactions. Red can raise the heart rate, blue can promote relaxation, and as a combination of the two, purple can provide a balance that encourages creativity.

MAGICARCH used pink and yellow tones in the rehabilitation gym spaces on the east side of the Nexus8 clinic to evoke the colors of a sunset, which can boost the production of relaxation-inducing melatonin in the brain. The west side, where the medical consultation rooms are, was mostly painted blue in an effort to help both doctors and patients focus during medical treatment and surgery.

The designers call the resulting aesthetics “Kubrick-ish,” and if you’re familiar with director Stanley Kubrick’s work, it’s easy to see why. Futuristic elements like circular hanging lamps, bright but diffused backlighting, and dynamic interior planes are interesting to look at, but they also add functionality and encourage air convection to make the building more comfortable and sustainable. The gym features softly fringed doorways and rehab equipment that actually looks fun to use, and the examination rooms are refreshingly devoid of intimidation.

According to the firm, the design “generates the therapeutic with thermodynamic strategy, creating different atmospheres for the climatic comfort. Nexus8’s design enables metabolic architectures that rely on rehabilitation techniques based on the hormonal response of the human being. Rooms are characterized by the intensity, direction, and saturation of the light that users perceive depending on the space they are located in. This is an essential part of the chromatic design process.”

“Therefore, the clinical space is designed from a CHROMATIC AND LIGHT METABOLISM perspective, spaces are articulated through EQUIPPED DEVICES that finish completing uses and energies, and the DESIGN OF THE INVISIBLE thinks about the atmosphere, the acoustic, the thermal…as construction materials.”

Ultimately, the feel of the space is just as important as its form. Walking in feels like getting an enormous, comforting hug, translating the word “care” into a physical sensation.

The post The Form of Care: Soothing Colors Enhance a Traumatology Clinic in Spain first appeared on Dornob.

Unfortunately, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic right now, and we need to protect our healthcare workers at all costs. Suddenly, the idea of a robot dog holding up an iPad sounds like a great stand-in for a living, breathing person, and that’s exactly what’s playing out in one Boston hospital right now.

Engineering and robotics design company Boston Dynamics is best known for “BigDog,” a quadrupedal robot it created in 2004 as a robotic pack mule for the military. But its smaller, more nimble “Spot” may prove to be its most versatile creation yet, able to traverse rough terrain but also small enough to use indoors. The company names construction, oil, and gas facility inspections, public safety, and entertainment as its primary applications.

Using it to help reduce exposure of frontline healthcare workers to the novel coronavirus was a no-brainer, the company says. In early March, Boston Dynamics started getting worried inquiries from local hospitals. At Brigham And Women’s Hospital, one sixth of staff contracted the disease within a week. That spurred the company into action, testing ways to use Spot as a mobile robotics solution.

An official statement explains that “based on these conversations, as well as the global shortage of critical personal protective equipment (PPE), we have spent the past several weeks trying to better understand hospital requirements to develop a mobile robotics solution with our robot, Spot. The result is a legged robot application that can be deployed to support frontline staff responding to the pandemic in ad-hoc environments such as triage tents and parking lots.”

“With current protocols at local hospitals, patients suspected to have COVID-19 are asked to line up in tents outside to answer questions and get initial assessments for temperature. This process requires up to five medical staff, placing those individuals at high risk of contracting the virus. With the use of a mobile robot, hospitals are able to reduce the number of necessary medical staff at the scene and conserve their limited PPE supply.”

The robot is now used as a mobile telemedicine platform that allows healthcare providers to remotely triage patients. The company mounts an iPad and a two-way radio to the robot’s back, allowing doctors to video conference with patients as they remotely navigate the robot through lines of sick people in the tents. That means doctors can not only stay out of harm’s way, but even work from home.

The technology is far from perfectly tailored to this task, but that’s rapidly changing. Boston Dynamics is still working on ways to remotely collect important vital sign information like oxygen saturation and body temperature, which it may address with thermal and RGB cameras. They might even equip “Spot” with UV-C lights or other disinfecting methods to kill the virus in hospitals and public places.

If you’re a healthcare worker or official interested in using the technology at your facility, you can get in touch with Boston Dynamics through their website.

The post Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog Stands In for Remote Healthcare Workers first appeared on Dornob.

FluSense is welcomed as a useful health surveillance tool. In a UMass-Amherst press release, co-author Tauhidur Rahman explained that “this may allow us to predict flu trends in a much more accurate manner.” Rahman is a UMass-Amherst Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Sciences. He also advises Forsad Al Hossain, the PhD student and lead author of the FluSense study that has been recently published through the Association for Computing Machinery.

Why is this invention important now? In recent months, signs of coughing have taken on a new significance as the COVID-19 pandemic rages across the globe. With this UMass-Amherst detector, coughs and other symptoms associated with the flu or flu-like ailments can be monitored much more closely.

How does FluSense work? The published study describes the device as employing an analytic array that consists of a microphone, thermal camera, Raspberry Pi, and “neural computing engine.” This neural computing engine gathers information on speech and cough sounds, then analyzes the data together with “changes in crowd density” in real-time.

Most unique about FluSense is the way it takes advantage of edge computing technology, which has continued to gain popularity as millions of devices connect through the Internet of Things, or IoT. Hewlett Packard describes edge computing as “a distributed, open IT architecture that features decentralized processing power, enabling mobile computing and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. In edge computing, data is processed by the device itself or by a local computer or server, rather than being transmitted to a data center.”

In other words, FluSense computes, analyzes, and stores its data in real-time, right where it is collected instead of thousands of miles of away at some central database. And as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) notes, there are a number of benefits to that. For one, edge computing minimizes the risks of latency, data loss, or redundancy, which translates to improved information security and reliability. It also helps with computational efficiency, acceleration, and optimization of data processing. Finally, with no need for costly bandwidth, decentralized tech optimizes data flow and maximizes operational costs.

When speaking on FluSense’s internal components, Al Hossain further revealed that his team was “trying to bring machine-learning systems to the edge. All of the processing happens right here. These systems are becoming cheaper and more powerful.”

According to Healthcare IT News, several FluSense detectors were tested from December 2018 to July 2019. They “were encased in a rectangular box about the size of a large dictionary,” then placed in a number of clinic waiting rooms at UMass University Health Services. From data compiled that included “more than 350,000 thermal images and 21 million non-speech audio samples,” FluSense “accurately predict[ed] daily illness rates at the university clinic.”

“I’ve been interested in non-speech body sounds for a long time,” Rahman explained. “I thought if we could capture coughing or sneezing sounds from public spaces where a lot of people naturally congregate, we could utilize this information as a new source of data for predicting epidemiologic trends.”

Because the device is portable, FluSense’s data can be collected in many different settings, not just the healthcare environments of physician offices’ waiting rooms, clinics, and hospitals, but also in large public spaces. In this way, FluSense can be leveraged to “expand the arsenal of health surveillance tools used to forecast seasonal flu” and other outbreaks or pandemics, cites Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

Andrew Lover, a UMass-Amherst Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Assistant Professor, added that the team “[has] the initial validation that the coughing indeed has a correlation with influenza-related illness. Now we want to validate it beyond this specific hospital setting and show that we can generalize across locations.”

The UMass-Amherst press release shared that future studies with FluSense will likely be seeing how it performs in other public arenas and even more challenging geographic locations.

The post New Portable AI Device Tracks Flu and Pandemic Data from Coughing Sounds first appeared on Dornob.

In November of 2017, St. Mary Mercy Livonia began construction of a new, 2,600-square-foot chapel — one that would not only serve the same purpose as the old one, but also cater to the needs of the broader religious community that used the hospital. After all, St. Mary is a Catholic hospital, but the new chapel also provides spaces of worship for Protestants and non-Christian Abrahamic worshippers.

To create this blend of faiths within a single space, the chapel had to be given an irregular shape. Indeed, it does not have the symmetry of a conventional chapel from the outside, but an organic form that’s simultaneously subtle and expressive. The curves of the north elevation are formed by an intricate pattern of brickwork.

On the inside, the walls do not entirely follow the footprint of the plan, which makes for even more odd spaces and peculiar relationships between rooms. The architects behind the redesign, PLY+, did this so that each faith would not feel disturbed by the presence of the others. Whether or not that works from a deeply spiritual perspective is a personal question for each worshipper. However, it is understood by everyone that the chapel is a place for miracles, regardless if it is a Muslim, Jew, or Christian coming to pray. At the front of the main hall is the altar, which itself is hewn from Wisconsin Corastone.

The front of the chapel faces north, with skylights positioned for southern solar orientation. Clerestory windows hidden high in the ceiling draw light downwards onto the cherry wood pews and walnut liturgical chairs. The structure also boasts a healing garden with a Japanese maple tree and a crucifix that was handcrafted in Germany.

When construction of the new chapel first got under way, David Spivey, president and CEO of St. Mary Mercy Livonia, said: “The new chapel is an important addition that will allow us to meet the needs of our patients, visitors, staff, and community members who seek healing for their body, mind, and spirit.”

In these polarizing times, chapels like these prove that no matter what we believe, we all have moments when we cannot control the outcome of our lives. In hospitals everywhere, there are moments of great weakness to overcome, and sometimes even grief to live with. When those times do come around, it’s comforting to know that there are spaces where we can seek out strength.

Once again, architecture has shown us that when used correctly, it can be used to bring people together, not drive them apart.

The post Different Faiths Find Hope Under the Same Roof at New Hospital Chapel in Detroit first appeared on Dornob.

According to Steven Holl Architects, Maggie’s Centre was created as a “vessel within a vessel within a vessel.” More literally, it’s a three-level building dressed in a matte exterior that allows plenty of natural light in, with purposeful openings formed from concrete and bamboo helping that light flow deep into the interiors. The project also features a curved natural staircase, which receives its own dose of diffused natural light from the street and direct light through clear glass under the rooftop garden on the third floor.

This St. Bartholomew’s Hospital location is one of over 20 in the United Kingdom, all of which were designed by some of the most renowned names in architecture.

Far too many contemporary buildings are surrounded by clear glass, but Maggie’s Centre Barts is thankfully not one of them. Instead, Okalux edged glass coats the facade, giving it more of a handmade look instead of a cold, mechanical one. This aesthetic is accentuated by the addition of colorful glass fragments referring to 13th-century neume notations. “The word neume originates from the Greek pnevma, which means ‘vital force.’ It suggests a ‘breath of life’ that fills oneself with inspiration like a stream of air, the blowing of the wind,” explains the Steven Holl team on their site. By using these notations as inspiration, the facade becomes a representation of its own intentions, whereby the “breath of life” is the diffused light and those filled with “inspiration” are the patients themselves.

The center stands juxtaposed with the 18th-century masonry buildings around it, including the main building of the St. Bartholomew’s Hospital itself. This hospital is the oldest in London, dating all the way to the city’s medieval period. When a complex’s new and old buildings are separated by hundreds of years like this, a unique dialogue is born. The historic architecture connects to the contemporary architecture in terms of purpose, and the contemporary architecture in turn connects with us. The whole neighborhood then develops a timelessness that neither building could’ve achieved by itself.

The architecture of Maggie’s Centre Barts shows a deep concern for the wellness of its users, projecting the vitality of life both day and night. By its very design, the building makes a powerful and calming statement: that cancer does not have to mean the end, and that it can even be a new beginning. It’s a place of optimism where goals are set and people are inspired to focus on the good they can do.

The post The Empathetic Architecture of Maggie’s Centre Barts first appeared on Dornob.

Pawson, best known for his minimal approach to architectural design, took on the challenge of making the hotel out of a former hospital and convent on Tel Aviv’s pristine seafront. Working with local conservation architect Ramy Gill, Pawson took the historic 19th-century complex, whose existing architectural styles ranged from Arabic to neoclassical, and transformed it into a tasteful and stylish high-end hotel that retained all of the period elements while still feeling fresh and contemporary. This mix of old and new is exquisitely executed in every area, from the central U-shaped courtyard filled with trees to the vaulted chapel-turned-bar and lobby, both of which take full advantage of the convent’s former prayer space. Elsewhere, 120 guest rooms and 32 exclusive residences have been situated in a new addition.

The meeting of historic and modern can also be seen in the hotel’s materials and finishings, which, in classic Pawson style, have been treated delicately to reveal the true character of the building. The owners of the hotel explain: “the plastered walls were scraped down to reveal the generations of patina that touch the building’s signage and paint patterned walls, paying homage to the building’s historic beauty.” The result is calming, with brushed plaster arches complementing exposed masonry for a uniform look that makes everything in the hotel read as part of the same story. Some of the bedrooms even have impressive vaulted ceilings that crest above the beds and display mottled paintwork, allowing the light from the windows to dance across the roof.

The Jaffa’s furniture and artwork are also used as feature elements. In the lobby and bar, accent colors like powder blue and burnt orange contrast with the neutral stone palette of the floor and walls. The bedrooms used muted creams and grays with the occasional splash of color to create a relaxing environment, with white bed linens and ethereal curtains completing the ambiance. Artworks by famous artists like Damien Hirst cement the hotel’s luxury status, though it’s already palpable in its restaurants, dining areas, and spa.

All in all, The Jaffa is an incredibly unique hotel that offers its guests the very best in state-of-the-art luxury, with modern conveniences seamlessly blending with traditional charm and old world elegance throughout.

The post John Pawson Transforms Historic Tel Aviv Hospital into Luxury Hotel first appeared on Dornob.

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Once the winds die down, the ground stops shaking and the dust begins to settle, a disaster may yet get worse if critical infrastructure was destroyed during the event.

Hence the need for something ultra-portable, very lightweight and easy to assemble, like this Origami Shelter system by Doowon Suh.

Like a Bankers Box (or piece of paper pre-folded for an origami project, these slim triangle-and-rectangle composites flip and slide into new stable configurations on the fly.

These instant emergency shelters can be deployed in various configurations, partitioning indoor space or forming outdoor structures. While they may not make for long-term housing or support structures, they could be a great idea for first-responder architecture.

Sometimes, people just need a roof over their heads as quickly as possible while their environment is rebuilt around them. That’s where shelters like Suh’s come in. A lot of temporary disaster shelters are bulky, expensive to produce or take too long to erect, so the ease of transport and assembly is a big win as far as this project goes.

“Origami ZIP” was an entry into the iF World Design Guide competition, which is recognized as a symbol of design excellence around the world. Here’s the project description:

“This project is a “Temporary Shelter” which improves the living conditions of temporary evacuees of natural disasters. Origami ZIP is designed to fold and fit into an SUV. Origami zip is also designed to be effectively transported to relief sites in large shipments and 40 of them can be shipped in one cargo container.”

“If this project were used to help the evacuees in Japan, they would have been able to keep their personal privacy. If this project were used to help the evacuees in Haiti, they would have been able to escape the harsh conditions of the large tents used as temporary shelters.”

The post Origami-Inspired Flat Pack Emergency Shelter first appeared on Dornob.

A fantastic floating bedroom, beautiful lofted living room, stunning two-story-high ceilings and wonderfully rusticated wood and brick accents … are the last thing you expect to find when visiting a hospital. No, the doctor is not in – this facility has been radically renovated into a spacious apartment.

From light-colored hardwood floors up to a fully-furnished rooftop deck, there is little indication of what this building used to be. Exposed structural brickwork was also most definitely not part of the plan when this was once a highly-sanitized, white-painted set of spaces.

Unlike some creatively converted apartments or condos, this set of spaces does not (by necessity) preserve much of the original interior design character. Exposed structural elements, warmer materials, modernist touches and copious decor are all integrated to offset any remaining sense of a cold and sterile setting.

The post Condo Conversion: Old Hospital into Hospitable New Home first appeared on Dornob.