Healthcare Architects, the Indian Institutes of Technology and Cannabis Bob Dylan sang about it: “I would not be so alone Everybody must get stoned…” The Beatles sang about it: “I went upstairs and had a smoke…somebody spoke and I went into a dream…” Times have changed since then, for me. The IIT’s in the ‘70’s […]
Alternative Building Forms & Massing: Pro’s & Con’s – Horizontal or Vertical In the First World countries of the West, the trend in the recent past has been to steadily move away from hospitals organized primarily around vertical circulation systems. This trend has been most marked in the UK, where the Nightingale-inspired horizontal pavilion hospital […]
Schizophrenia, Alcoholism, and Buddhism-A Potent Cocktail Introduction A man who knows he is flawed has taken the first step towards wholeness. Forty Years ago, a young, struggling twenty-something designer working in the office of an internationally renowned architect in Mumbai, India, a recent graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, abusing both […]
Future Perfect: Trends Shaping Healthcare Architecture When most of us think about the future of medicine, architecture is not the first thing that comes to mind. We think of advances in technology, enabling better imaging techniques, robotic surgery, and advances in medical research, enabling genetic engineering of which miracles are now expected. We think, too, […]
Nirvana and Healthcare Architecture Can Nirvana be described in language? There seem to be significant problems in trying to undertake this. H. Guenther and C. Trungpa in their book “The Dawn of Tantra” describe these problems in the extract below: “Buddhism has always placed great emphasis on experience. The four basic axioms of Buddhism are […]
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying A spiritual classic from one of the foremost interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism to the West Sogyal Rinpoche Born in Kham in eastern Tibet, Sogyal Rinpoche was recognized as the incarnation of Tertén Sogyal Lerab Lingpa, a teacher to the thirteenth Dalai Lama. He received the traditional training of […]
Circulation: A Critical Issue — Conceptual Clarity & Ease of Wayfinding ‘Circulation’ is defined by the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate dictionary as: “orderly movement through a circuit; esp: the movement of blood through the vessels of the body influenced by the pumping action of the heart.” So we have our medical analogy, though a hospital is […]
Hospital Design Process-Initial Stages-Brief Overview Following is a brief description of the initial stages of the hospital design process. • Facility Mix IThe facility mix is a list of the various components of the proposed hospital and is derived from the Detailed Project Report. It will give the number and types of inpatient rooms and […]
The following is an interview of Will Steffen, emeritus professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University. It is taken from a magazine titled “Down To Earth” an excellent publication of the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India. “Tipping points will be crossed faster” WILL STEFFEN, emeritus professor at […]
Biophilia: An Introduction By Husaini Sadikot—Guest Blogger There are many reasons why there is and will be in the future a reduction of greenery such as plants and vegetation. One reason is, of course, the desire to make quick money and the profit motive like the cutting down of trees for wood for uses […]
