Design that Heals

It is the architect's responsibility to protect the public's health, safety, and welfare. Ironically, healthcare facilities, whose programs focus on those elements, often seem to fall short of those basic design standards. The evolution of healthcare practices has brought us to a stage of design that focuses on the machine rather than the patient. This shift has created stripped, unwelcoming, and unnatural healthcare environments that have proven to negatively impact the health and well-being of facilities' patients.

Dialysis treatment facilities, whose medical procedures rely so heavily on machines, are an even more extreme condition of this imbalance. In an effort to raise awareness of this problem and reinvigorate architectural design that actually promotes healthy environments, I chose to explore the idea of "design that heals". Through the conscientious integration of nature, light, and color, this project redefines the priorities of a healthcare facility and takes a holistic and sustainable approach to design that better cares for the patients and enlivens the community.

The proposed program pairs a dialysis clinic with a community nutrition center which helps address the causes of kidney disease at the source. Located in an underserved Anacostia neighborhood, the people-focused building provides nutrition education, food production and healthcare services. Taking inspiration from the filtration process of dialysis, the building aims to celebrate and expose its own water circulation systems, mirroring the beautiful, yet chaotic, systems within the human body.