6-20 May 1979
Organised by the Hungarian Council of Industrial Design. Participants included eleven Hungarian designers and twelve foreign designers from eight countries. The organisers defined the general objective as being ‘To analyse, conceptualise and propose certain solutions, which serve the healing of patients mainly in diagnostic and curing methods of health-care delivery’. The comprehensive theme of the seminar was divided into various sub-themes, which were further treated in smaller teams under the direction of a group co-ordinator.
Objectives
- Develop concepts and document proposals for a panel construction system for old and new buildings that can be exported commercially, and for equipment and services that can be built-into facilities with maximised sterility.
- To make preliminary research and design of intensive and active care.
- To design a patient reception/waiting area and facilities for patient examination.
- To draw proposals for the “hospital of the future”.
Projects
Design for operating rooms, panel systems
Proposals depicted utilisation of a panel construction system to upgrade, in a renovated hospital, areas requiring high levels of well-maintained sterility. Inside an operating theatre, cassette-style flooring to minimise floor loading and provide optimum access for installation of services. Other areas of analysis included associated rooms, floor surface, skeleton frame of a panel mounting system, and ceiling structure.
Design for hospital units and special units (inpatient departments)
Proposals were drawn for treatment (i.e. bed space) and ancillary facilities (i.e. en-suite toilet and water for relatives to stay overnight). Regarding the design of the central nurse station area, detailed diagrams were drawn depicting an “inner zone: clerical and monitoring”, an “outer zone: medication, utility” as well as recommended architectural finishes.
Design for area for ambulant patients (outpatient services)
Emphasis was on colours, spatial relationships of elements, activity patterns and patient flow, contents of room, decoration with information content, and information transfers. Ideas concerned making better use of patients’ waiting time by allowing them to assist in the medical process, giving them preventative medicine information, and creating an entertaining environment. Other areas of scrutiny involved design considerations for patient information station, functional elements of a room, and decoration with information content.
Multi-system design of the hospital in the year 2000 (“the hospital of the future”)
Proposals included design consideration for the exterior architecture of the future building, design considerations for the outside of a patient’s room as well as the interior, discussion of the functionality of medical equipment, as well as the environment and equipment that is not healthcare related.