Friday, September 17, 2010

Central Regional Hospital Peer Evaluations

Katie O'Boyle

Katie's concept is based on the changing seasons of the year as a metaphor for how the children of the hospital will grow and heal. This seems to be a very strong concept as the idea of the deconstructed child emerging revitalized echoes the changing of seasons, winter to spring. The patient room that I saw of Katie's featured many built-in storage units at a height and scale of a child. The walls were a subdued dark blue and green with a section of wall where the child's art may be hung by velcro. The velcro wall seems to be an innovative solution to hanging the child's art and is in itself very seasonal in its ability to change according to the client's need (or mood). My suggestion is that Katie frame this velcro section off or have elements of it respond to the rest of the room so that it is cohesive. One idea would be to create an interesting design for the shelves of the storage units and then carry that over to the sectioning and framing of the velcro.


Ino bases his design around his "bird's nest" concept. In this metaphor, the parent birds are the nurses and doctors, and the patients are the hatchlings. In Ino's sketches, the value of the nest form is evident as seating is arranged in a circle by the large windows. He also has a blue table placed in the middle of this arrangement to perhaps signify the point of focus during group sessions. The materials of the design are meant to introduce the clients/patients to softer more natural materials than what is available. Colors in the space are light blue accents coupled the red, blue, and yellow primary colors. Plants in various planters will also be placed about the space.
Based on some of Ino's model work I saw built-in cabinet storage units, as well as a small slide placed in the corner of one of the patient/client rooms. Although this slide idea seems pretty good for child interaction, the slide I saw was very short and small, also activities like that are often more social and fun in the company of others. It might be nice to place the slide in one of the activity rooms or group room. I also noticed that many of the furniture components are placed without much relation to the overall design or do not seem to connect together well at this point. A system of forms, objects and services could be put in place that implies the unity that the bird's nest is about. Multiple parts must be strung together, not necessarily always in a circle, but so that an environmental system is established.

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