Dutch architecture studio OMA has produced a film exploring hospital design as part of its research into its first hospital buildings. Partner at the studio Reinier de Graaf tells Dezeen how he envisions the hospital of the future.
OMA has been commissioned to build hospitals in France and Qatar, despite having no experience in designing medical buildings. This demonstrates that hospital design needs to be rethought, according to De Graaf.
"We were selected precisely because we had never done a hospital," De Graaf told Dezeen. "Therefore, we were unburdened by a lot of baggage."
"They're apparently willing to take the risk to take on a firm that is inexperienced in the sector, I think this is an indication of how much the sector itself feels that it's stuck," he continued. "The thinking about hospitals is in drastic, drastic need of innovation."
Coronavirus "hasn't changed healthcare"
As part of its design process for the hospital projects, both of which are currently strictly confidential, OMA created a short film on the Hospital of the Future to outline its thinking on hospital design.
Although OMA began designing the projects before the current pandemic, De Graaf believes that the coronavirus has exposed issues with current healthcare provision and architecture.
Top: an image from OMA's Hospital of the Future film. Above: Reinier de Graaf
"In many ways, the whole Covid crisis has accelerated a number of notio...