Indeed, a horizontal program allows the building to be closer to nature, yet the hospital’s design, whose expansion occurs vertically, can help manage the zoning and patient transfer more effectively.
The architecture team is aware that to design a hospital with 30,000-square meter capacity, and for it to have an efficiently functioning, distinguishable circulation, the design needs to be more than a simple horizontal functional program. Nevertheless, the concept gets translated to the architecture which embraces nature as a part of the design in various ways. Such understanding can effectively lessen a person’s feeling of discomfort and anxiety from being out of place, and will help the person feel more relaxed, safe and ultimately reach the stage where a healthy mind overcomes a weakened body. People feel safer when they are in an area where they feel a sense of familiarity and connection with the space and natural surrounding they’re in. The results from these analyses came into fruition as a belief that the ‘homey and simple’ characteristics of both built structures and location can really impact people’s feelings. The analysis extended to a more in-depth look into beliefs about illness and recoveries in Central Isan cultures. The design team studied and collected data and information through workshops, which invited people from various professions and economic and social backgrounds to exchange their opinions about their ‘dream hospital.’ The design team also analyzed several case studies in foreign countries where nature and spiritual beliefs are incorporated as a part of the design, including the study of friendship therapy, which originated in a small community in the United States during the early 20th Century. With confidence in the design teams’ visions and attitudes towards the value of vernacular wisdom to create the work of architecture that genuinely resonates with the locality or community to which it belongs, the executives believed that both Arsomsilp and Spacetime would bring out the human side of design to represent the hospital’s philosophy and overall spirit.įor the hospital to truly fulfill its objective in creating a healing space with efficiently functional spaces and contextually derived architecture, research was the starting point of Arsomsilp’s design process. Both firms are relatively new to hospital projects, and that is the exact reason why the owner assigned them the task, mainly because of the project’s focus on the healthy minds overcoming weakened bodies concept. Nonetheless, when Khon Kaen’s first private hospital, Ratchapruek Hospital, decided to construct a new building, which would accommodate 220 hospital beds for the customers from the central Isan region, they chose Arsomsilp Community and Environmental Architect and Spacetime Architects to oversee the design. Hospital design always involves healthcare-associated rules and regulations that require an architecture team with enough expertise and experiences to help materialize the design and construction process. The images of confined and crowded waiting areas has become the first thought people have when they think of hospitals.
As a result, common areas in hospitals have become disconnected from nature as the facilities gradually became more rigid and lifeless, contradicting with their role as a place that should comfort and amend people’s mental and physical well being.
Nevertheless, the continuous urban expansion and population growth that ensued free trade policies implemented in the early 1990s have caused both the state-owned and private hospitals to replace their green spaces with newly built structures. These elements reflect the type of architecture which was created attentively, in order for it to be a place of comfort where users feel safe, relaxed instead of terrified or intimidated when they set foot inside a hospital. As intimidating as they might have been, I always remember the calm feeling I felt in the common spaces inside hospitals, from the presence of sunlight to the garden’s luscious greenery. ARSOMSILP COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT ARCHITECT TEAMS UP WITH SPACETIME ARCHITECTS TO DESIGN THE RATCHAPHRUEK HOSPITAL IN KHON KAEN PROVINCE, A SO-CALLED ‘HOUSEPITAL’ THAT OFFERS A MORE HUMAN DIMENSION TO ITS USERS INSTEAD OF BASING THE DESIGN ON QUESTIONS LIKE ‘HOW CAN THE PROJECT BE MARKETED?’įrom personal experience growing up during the 1980s, the image of serious-looking hospital buildings are still vivid in my memories.