Open building and flexibility in healthcare: strategies for shaping spaces for social aspects

Abstract

Introduction: The fast development of technology and medicine influences the functioning of healthcare facilities as health promoter for the society, making the flexibility a fundamental requirement. Among the many ways to ensure adaptability, one that allows change without increasing the building's overall size is the Open Building approach.

Methodology: Starting from the analysis of the State-of-the-Art and many case-studies, eight parameters of evaluation were defined, appraising their relative importance through a weighting system defined with several experts. The resulting evaluation tool establishes in what measure healthcare facilities follow the Open Building principles.

Results and discussion: The tool is tested to ten case-studies, chosen for their flexible features, in order to determine his effectiveness and to identify projects' weaknesses and strengths.

Conclusions: The results suggest that many Open Building's principles are already in use but, only through a good design thinking, it will be possible to guarantee architectures for health adaptable for future social challenges.