UPCOMING EVENTS

20×2 2018 – Thursday 22 November, 6-9pm
20 presentations of no more than 2 minutes. Any subject matter. Any art form. Prizes galore and all delivered by YOU!

Do you have something to say about the state of the world at the moment? You do? Then come and present at the 20×2, a fun way to finish our events of 2018.

It can be about a current issue, a dream or an experience and it must relate to health and wellbeing in some way. Be as witty and whimsical or as mischievous as you like – but not defamatory or slanderous please!
Booking now closed….

Immersive Technologies for Healthcare Short Course – 5th December 2018
The Bartlett Real Estate Institute, UCL at Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London
Interactive one-day course for those with an interest in healthcare buildings.
There is an increased need for built environment professionals to understand state of the art advanced and immersive technologies. These are one of the main drivers of healthcare growth and development.
This one-day interactive course will give you the chance to experience these technologies first hand, explore the broader context of these technologies and the opportunities and challenges for the planning and design of healthcare facilities, from teaching hospitals to care homes. Places still available. Find out more and book your place now

AGM 2019 – Thursday 28 February, 6-9pm
Put this date in your diary. Huge announcement coming soon!

European Healthcare Design Congress 2019 – 17-19 June

Call for Papers: 4 weeks until 7 December deadline
With the plenary theme of ‘Blurring the boundaries: designing place-based health systems’ next year’s congress will explore how the global shift towards population-and place-based health systems are gaining momentum, facilitated by advances in science and technology.
Click here to download the Call for Papers and submit your abstract via the online form.

PREVIOUS EVENTS

Student Design Awards 2019 Launch – Thursday 1 Nov 6-9pm
Come along to the launch of the 2019 Student Design Awards on 1 Nov at HKS Architects, Elsley House, 24–30 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 8BF, from 6-9pm.

The AfH Student Design Awards challenge students of architecture and design to explore innovative and compassionate design for health and social care settings.

European Health Property Network
The European Health Property Network has a membership of professionals from a wide range of disciplines and meets annually for a workshop, this year in Gothenburg. The EuHPN website https://euhpn.eu/ includes extensive documentation on workshops from 2011 onwards including access to speakers’ slides.

The sessions from Turin 2017 includes presentations by Carole Crane and Paul Mercer on the thorny topic of “guidance” as applied to healthcare developments.

Visit the EuHPN website again soon when the slides from Gothenburg will be available.

Architects for Health Study Tour – Northern Ireland 4-6 July, 2018
Health Infrastructure for the NHS in Northern Ireland has followed a distinctive path from the rest of the UK. Under the control of the Northern Ireland Department of Health for much of the last 30 years, buildings have been commissioned placing a high value on quality and local partnerships. As a result, the province has some of the best recent health buildings developed to provide NHS services. The Architects for Health 2018 study tour organised with the generous support of sponsors Axis Entrance Systems and contractors, McLaughlin & Harvey Construction visited a range of Acute, Sub-acute and Community Health Facilities.
Read more…

Susan Francis

3rd March 1952 – 29th April 2017
B.A., A.A. Dip., MARCA, AfH Programme Director

It is with great sadness and a huge sense of loss that we announce the peaceful death of Susan Francis on Saturday 29th April 2017.
Susan has been involved with Architects for Health since its beginnings, and more recently has been its Programme Director. Her contribution to the great success that AfH, the AfH Student Awards and the European Healthcare Design Congress currently have has been profound. She will be so greatly missed.

Obituary – written by John Cooper, director of healthcare specialist John Cooper Architecture

Our mission

Architects for Health (AfH) believes that the spaces of healthcare have an important effect on the well-being of patients, their friends and families, and that good design can positively influence patient outcomes.

We work to bring about well-designed and restorative health facilities, through enabling conditions for this change, both through our membership and with wider health institutions and communities.

By sharing ideas, experiences and examples, we are building knowledge networks that inform and support the future design of high-quality healthcare environments.
Find out more about us.

Join us!

AfH has a current membership of about 500 people who share our values across healthcare planning, design, and delivery. Become a member and get access to this expanding network.

Other benefits include early-bird access to events, information exchange and collaboration, CPD opportunities and support for ideas for AfH activities and projects.

Guidance

Healthcare design guidance – mainly Health Building Notes and Health Technical Memoranda – are a vital part of health facility design but this guidance is now increasingly out of date and suffering from lack of recent investment.

Architects for Health have taken the initiative and held an industry-wide Round Table in late 2016 to debate the future of guidance.

• The conclusions and recommendations from the Round Table were wide-ranging and the full report can be viewed here
• AfH were also asked to conduct a survey across the industry and all who use or have used design guidance are invited to take the survey here

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY research study: Ward Design

Architects for Health members to contribute to a study being carried out by Andrew Livesey of Cundall. The paper aims to understand how ward design impacts occupant comfort during periods of strain in peak winter and peak summer, and to make recommendations for future developments. He already has some involvement from Public Health England, IHEEM and Nursing Times. Members are asked to complete a simple questionnaire using the link below.
Questionnaire – https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/86T86CT
Explainer video – https://youtu.be/fNymAsGVtiU

News

Living with Buildings | Wellcome Collection
This major exhibition about health and architecture will examine the positive and negative influence buildings have on our health and wellbeing. Opens 4 October 2018.

Senses and Hospitals
I am a historian of medicine working on the sensory history of hospitals. I am hoping to develop a funding application for the Wellcome Trust in 2018, at to that end will be organising two two-day workshops (most likely in April and June) on the senses and hospitals to develop hopefully a collaborative bid involving architects, artists, academics and others. If you are interested please contact Victoria Bates at victoria.bates@bristol.ac.uk

British Medical Auctions
For Project Teams involved in refurbishment or redesign. A service that will take old equipment or medical devices and send them to developing healthcare economies around the world. Proceeds from the sale of such equipment returns to the hospital Trust/Hospital Group for re-investment. Go to http://www.britishmedicalauctions.co.uk/ for additional information. Or write to paul.sherman@britishmedicalauctions.co.uk

Evidence Space
A platform organised by British Gypsum social media to share knowledge from Evidence Based Design academics, researchers, designers, clients and building users. Contributions from members of AfH would be welcome for publication on the website. Please go to http://www.british-gypsum.com/evidence-space/heal/evidence-based-design-in-healthcare for more information. Or write to Carly Lunt at carlyl@cibcomms.co.uk to discuss articles/research you may have written.