Rewarding experiences: A new approach to hospital ward design based on patient needs at different stages of treatment.Volker Giencke is one of the leading Graz architects (1) and was runner up in the competition for the Hartberg Hospital in 1992. Five years later he won the international competition for the Regional Hospital in Bregenz at the other end of Austria. It is still under construction and will be presented in full at a later date. For this issue we concentrate on Giencke's ideas about the design of the patient room and its relation to the outside world. His attention to detail recalls Aalto's statements about the design of Paimio. For someone marooned ma·roon 1 tr.v. ma·rooned, ma·roon·ing, ma·roons 1. To put ashore on a deserted island or coast and intentionally abandon. 2. in a hospital bed, the view out of the window is rather important, so the bed should face it directly rather than from the side, Giencke argues. The cill must be kept low in keeping with the patient's recumbent recumbent /re·cum·bent/ (re-kum´bent) lying down. re·cum·bent adj. Lying down, especially in a position of comfort; reclining. position, and it can be made broad enough to sit on when the patient is well enough to start leaving the bed. The space beneath it accommodates heating. For the very sick patient, view is restricted to be the ceiling above and beyond the bed, so the surface must be attractively made. Giencke folds it around over the bed like a canopy, providing indirect artificial lighting to avoid glare. The patient's television folds down from the ceiling like one in an airliner. As the focus of attention, the ceiling must not be dark, but daylit, so the patient is aware of changing light. Giencke provides a clerestorey panel just below ceiling level, then adds a horizontal baffle internally. This cuts off the direct light path to the patient's eyes, preventing glare, and provides a reflective Refers to light hitting an opaque surface such as a printed page or mirror and bouncing back. See reflective media and reflective LCD. up per surface to bounce 1. bounce - (Perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check) An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification (a "bounce message") to the sender is said to "bounce". 2. bounce - To play volleyball. The now-demolished D. C. light back onto the middle of the ceiling. The underside of the baffle will also be reflective but mirror-like, giving a reflected view through the middle windows of the park below. Sunblinds on the outside unroll to protect all but the clerestorey from direct exposure, while the inner blind can cover the main window panels leaving open the one at bed level, preserving a slot of view. The combination of panels, the layering and provision of blinds both outside and built into the glazing Glazing The application of finely ground glass, or glass-forming materials, or a mixture of both, to a ceramic body and heating (firing) to a temperature where the material or materials melt, forming a coating of glass on the surface of the ware. cavity cavity /cav·i·ty/ (kav´i-te) 1. a hollow place or space, or a potential space, within the body or one of its organs. 2. in dentistry, the lesion produced by caries. , promises a lively and mobile facade facade (fəsäd`), exterior face or wall of a building. The term implies ordered placement of its openings and other features and thus seems inapplicable to a wall without design. . (1.) See for instance AR December 1988, April 1990, February and April 1992, October 1995, March and October 1996, September 1998, June 1999. |
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