Archizond. The Past, Present and Future of Architecture and HealthArchizond. The Past, Present and Future of Architecture and Health

In the past too, spatial interventions were used to promote the health of residents and users. How did they do it back then, what can we learn from previous research, and what worked and what didn’t? Knowledge and ideas about healthy building are perhaps particularly applicable to the design of hospitals and other healthcare institutions.

Healthcare buildings used to mainly prioritise treating diseases, with the focus clearly on the patient. In recent decades, more attention has been paid to the working conditions of healthcare staff. In today’s healthcare buildings, promoting health is increasingly emphasised, both inside and outside the hospital, and the optimum working environment for healthcare staff is more and more built into the design.

Healthcare buildings must also be sustainable, for example meeting requirements for energy consumption and reuse. Innovations in construction methods and materials follow each other in quick succession, ensuring an even better balance between the building and the health of both people and the planet.

The exhibition features photos and drawings from the archives of the Nieuwe Instituut, with designs by J. Duiker (Zonnestraal Sanatorium), J.W.E. Buijs and J.B. Lürsen (The Rudolf Steiner clinic) A.C. Bleijs (Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis) and J.P. Kloos (the Juliana hospital in Terneuzen). In addition, photos and sketches represent more recent healthcare buildings by architecture office EGM – including the Radboud Medical Center.

The project is the result of a collaboration that forms part of Choose and Use. Based on the idea of “collecting centrally, but making the collection accessible decentrally”, the Nieuwe Instituut has developed a format with Choose and Use that allows regional and local initiatives from cultural and non-cultural fields to make use of material from the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning. Together with the participating partners, archive documents are selected in line with specific themes and current challenges.

Disclosing Architecture (2019-2024), the large-scale restoration and digitisation programme, ensures that large parts of the collection, which were previously too fragile to be loaned, can now be displayed once more. Choose and Use therefore also draws on archives that have been preserved and sometimes restored as part of Disclosing Architecture. Choose and Use was set up in part to further broaden the multitude of perspectives for approaching the National Collection on a partnership basis.

The exhibition is on show at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, a building designed by EGM. The visiting address is Geert Grooteplein Zuid 10 in Nijmegen. Radboud UMC will also host a lecture programme linked to the exhibition. More information about this will follow shortly.

"EGM architecten has existed for almost 50 years and has been active in healthcare for just as long: from hospitals, operating complexes and clinics to residential care centres, rehabilitation centres and youth psychiatry facilities. We design all these buildings for and with their users, and always with the aim of restoring or improving health. The buildings not only support the care process: they actually boost health. We are convinced that this is possible with every building.”

“As HealthScapes, we focus on the architecture of places where health is created, such as homes, offices, schools and healthcare buildings. We investigate the relationship between architecture and health and provide design-driven research, advice, evaluation and education to improve the health of people and the planet and prevent sickness.”

The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) conducts research into the relationship between the living environment and health and other related topics. As part of the Green Deal on Sustainable Healthcare, RIVM has been commissioned to research healthcare’s climate footprint and a healthier healthcare environment.