Medical & Health Humanities Seminar
“I call Architecture Frozen Music� Goethe and/or Friedrich Schelling
“[I am] convinced of the truth of Pythagoras' saying, that Nature is sure to act consistently . . . I conclude that the same numbers by means of which the agreement of sounds affect our ears with delight” Alberti 1452 “…proportions which we feel to be harmonious because they arouse, deep within us and beyond our senses, a resonance, a sort of sounding-board which begins to vibrate Le Corbusier 1923 As abstract art forms based on rhythm, proportion and harmony, architecture and music share a clear cultural lineage” Charles Jencks 2013
When designing for older people, or people with a cognitive impairment, how important are things like harmony, resonance, rhythm, balance or modulation?
â€œâ€Śform ever follows function
Goethe and/or Friedrich Schelling
“Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling workhorse‌form ever follows function. It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. Louis Sullivan 1896
firmitas
(strength)
utilitas
(functionality)
venustas (beauty)
Vitruvius circa. 50BC
Basic Functions • The Accommodation of Activities • Shelter & Salubrious Environments • Physical & Psychological Safety & Security • Financial Security, & Profit • Identity & Community • Identity, Individualism, & the Unique • Buildings as Signs & Status Symbols
Advanced Functions • The Cognitive Function of Architecture • Experiential Aesthetics & Intellectual Aesthetics Lang and Moleski 2010
When designing for people with complex physical, sensory & cognitive needs, how important is a multilayered approach that helps a building function as planned?
Designing for People with Dementia
How the built environment impacts us
Universal Design Approach All of us
Buildings
Person with Dementia
Hospital
Key Design Goals Design should:
•support connections & engagement with family & local community •compensate for physical, sensory & cognitive disability •reinforce familiarity •reinforce personal identity .
•support meaningful activity •be orientating and easy to understand •control sensory stimuli •promote independence, autonomy & choice •culturally appropriate & respect local context.
Key Design Considerations
Integration with community for access to services, independence and social interaction
Accessible & usable environment to support disability & normal effects of aging
Calm and easy to interpret environment
Soften the institutional environment
Facilitate personalisation to support continuity of self
Use familiar and recognisable design
Providing a people-friendly environment
Provide a safe environment Support diet, nutrition & hydration
Support meaningful activities
Support safety, health & wellbeing
Promote & support meaningful activities
Optimise positive sensory stimulation while minimising negative stimulation
Balance Sensory Stimulation
Contact with nature & access to outdoor spaces
Positive sensory stimuli – Especially pleasant environmental conditions (e.g. wildlife activity, daylight, birdsong, summer breezes)
Minimal negative sensory stimuli – Especially noise and glare
Way-finding to support navigation
Good visibility and visual access
Support orientation & spatial cognition
Support Orientation & Navigation
Good visual access – Such as low window sill height to allow views to garden
Single rooms with space for belongings and for visitors.
space to support a person with dementia & accompanying person
Space for retreat or conversely communal activities
space and supports for physical movement
space to support a person with dementia & accompanying person
safety & security Patient admission
care delivery
therapy
space a physica
Appropriate & ethical use of technology
Safe accessible outdoor spaces visible from the interior to encourage occupants to use safe garden spaces
Change of scene Biophilic Design & Exposure to nature – Health and wellbeing benefits Outdoor activities as therapy Outdoor space as ‘restorative’ environments in terms of attentional capacity Outdoor activities as physical exercise Exposure to natural light Space to Socialise Spiritual Wellbeing
When designing for older people, or people with a cognitive impairment, how important are things like harmony, resonance, rhythm, balance or modulation?
When designing for people with complex physical, sensory & cognitive needs, how important is a multilayered approach that helps a building function as planned?
Performance based Architecture
…technological and aesthetic styles of thought reduce architecture to our concepts of it. Other and essential aspects of buildings come into view if one supposes that the actuality of the building consists largely in its acts, its performances….
.. .uncritical reaffirmation of old-style functionalist thinking — a kind of thinking that is both reductive and inadequate because it recognizes only what it can predict Kolarevic & Malkawi 2005
“When the building is understood as the locus of performances (not functional solutions), it can be seen as both a preparation and a response; an ensemble of conditions that not only anticipates occurrences but reacts to them, by virtue of foresight in the first case and participation in the second.�Leatherbarrow 2013
Performance based design that creates well-tempered environments that are tuned and retuned to the needs of people living with dementia
Thank you tom.grey@tcd.ie
Disorders in Mediaeval Handwriting
Speaker: Dr Deborah Thorpe
Visiting Mari Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, Trinity Long Room Hub
Discussant: Prof Brendan Kelly Dept of Psychiatry, TCD
Neill Theatre Trinity Long Room Hub
Interactive Broadcast to Clinical Sites
13:00 – 14:00 Thursday 9th November 2017
London, British Library, MS Royal 14 E III, folio 6V
Medical and Health Humanities Seminar
Tremulous Hands: Tracing Diseases and