It’s been a busy decade for Michael Murphy, the company’s founding principal and executive director. Volkswagen Design Group (Boston), a nonprofit corporation of more than 200 architects, landscapers, engineers, builders, furniture designers, and researchers.

because of his purpose Healthcare Design Conference + Expo In 2013, he and his company completed several projects in Rwanda, including two national medical facilities, a new biomedical research facility and three university projects. The company’s first federally certified health center in the U.S. opened last year in McKinney, Texas.

In addition, Murphy co-authored the new book Healthy Architecture: Hospital Design and the Construction of Dignity with MASS Design Director Jeffrey Mansfield, published by Cooper Hewitt in New York, Smithsonian Design Museum. This book is a complement to the museum exhibit,”Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Pandemics,” until February 20.

Healthcare Design Talk to Murphy about his latest project, how historic buildings can provide experience for the industry, and his hopes for the future.

Healthcare Design: Where did the inspiration for this book come from?

Michael Murphy: Since our first healthcare project in Butaro, Rwanda, in 2011, I’ve focused on how hospitals have given us so many lessons on how infrastructure impacts our ability to live healthy lives. I researched historical eras and how different architects tackled them and wanted to compile this into a short history.

The pandemic has only accelerated the need for such surveys, which ask how buildings more broadly enable us to breathe better and stay healthy. Hospitals are a window into how to answer this question, as they are constantly thinking about the quality and infectivity of the indoor air environment.

Are there any historical design lessons in the book that impressed you?

The first lesson might be that buildings have to breathe. I say, from the perspective of airflow, but also from the perspective of these structures that can change our living breathing organism, and change with us.

The title of the book introduces the relationship between the built environment and dignity. Why is this connection important?

We argue in the book that hospitals are always trying to narrow the space between treating individuals and acknowledging their dignity and managing large-scale population health problems, such as outbreaks and complex medical procedures. Often between the two extremes is where design emerges to navigate the difference between institutionalization and feeling institutionalized. This sense of hospitality is where dignity emerges — and it’s absent in many healthcare spaces.

Why did your book begin with a focus on Prentice and Women’s Hospital, an iconic project in Chicago that closed in 2011?

Prentice is a great example of how a hospital can be designed from the inside out to respond to idealized parameters of care, such as the relationship and distance between nurses/staff and patients. At Prentice, the four-leaf structure is based on this figure being analysed by architect Bertrand Goldberg and the idealised geometry to optimise it – in this case, a semicircle around a nursing station. While Prentice was eventually dismantled for being difficult to adapt, it did show how the DNA of hospital design has always been infused with the idea of ??health outcomes and behavior-shaping strategies.

In one chapter, you wrote: “…the form and function of the world we build are not fixed. Architecture must adapt to an unknown future and serve the lives of many members of the public over time.” How the industry is responding to this A challenge?

I think so far the industry has been delegating hospitals to more community centers, urgent care centers and home medicine. But in the hospital itself, I think we still have work to do.

The assumption has always been that more flexible spaces are the answer, but when flexibility takes precedence over everything else, purposeful custom-designed solutions have to be abandoned. While this may meet the agency’s needs, it fails to meet the needs of staff and patients who want to understand their day-to-day experiences, health, and workplace design goals. So I actually believe that we need more fixed space where we can completely change in faster increments rather than flexibility over everything.

The book discusses past epidemics and the evolution of architecture. What impact do you think the current pandemic will have?

The pandemic has affected public perceptions of surrounding buildings. The use of outdoor waiting, social distancing and new air handling mitigation systems in all types shows that our health as a priority in buildings has shifted from hospitals to other building types. I think new policies will come, requiring higher air velocities and more windows and operable fenestrations. I hope these changes start to thin and shrink the floor slabs and remind us of some of the lessons of how medical facilities adapted a century ago.

How does human-centred design lead to a better environment for patients and staff?

A one-size-fits-all solution is designed for anyone. Meaning, people may use the facility but feel that it does not meet their specific needs. Human-centred design challenges this concept by putting people and their experiences front and center. Hospitals fight this the hardest because they have very real functional, code-based, legal and population health requirements to operate effectively, often treating individuals as numbers. Therefore, human-centred design is always under tension in medical spaces, which is what makes them so fascinating. But I hope human-centred design starts to win more.

What is one takeaway from your book for the design community?

Hospitals have always been an under-studied and theorized typology of buildings, and by studying them we can learn more about the fundamental workings of buildings than by looking at other, less complex typologies. Hospitals are super-architectures. They reveal all the complexities and promises of the discipline, and make us realize how important good design is to us living full and healthy lives.

You were recently interviewed by 60 Minutes about your work and community-focused architecture. Why is it important to communicate this information to the general public?

The public still sees architecture and architects as extra services for the wealthy, rather than basic services for the functioning of society. During the pandemic, it has become clear that buildings not only shape our health, but also our right to air as citizens. This reckoning liberates architects from serving those who can afford it and serving our rights as a society.

The release of your book accompanies an exhibit by Cooper Hewitt at the Smithsonian Design Museum. tell us.

The show, which started before the pandemic, is about how design and health shape these questions about us and our society. The pandemic has only reinforced that argument, and we have examples in real time that we have to include. We have altered and redesigned the exhibit so that we can tell the story of our daily lives during the pandemic through current and historical examples.

We worked with Ellen Lupton, Senior Curator of Contemporary Design, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design, and her team to redesign and redesign the exhibition so that we can look through current and historical Examples to illustrate our daily lives during a pandemic. Some of my favorite pieces are custom installations from artists like Sam Stubblefield that help us take data and design to another level of experience and interpretation.

For example, the exhibition opens with one of Stubblefield’s multimedia installations – a video projection and soundscape that uses brain waves to construct group portraits, reflecting the growing trend of using digital devices to monitor human health. The introductory gallery also features infographics, physical monitoring, social distancing, mutual aid, and a background section on the work of MASS Design Group and its COVID-19 Design Response Team.

Going forward, what is your one goal or hope for the healthcare design industry in 2022?

The industry sees its role not only as effectively shaping buildings according to complex policies and guidelines, but as an agent for changing the thinking and typology of architecture in the world. This has been the case historically, and I think it will continue to be the case after the pandemic.

Anne DiNardo is Executive Editor of Healthcare Design. She can be reached at [email protected].