Week 1: Research Days

Selene R -

Hi Everyone!

Welcome back, my first week of my senior project consisted of a lot of research. This week I focused on researching Sustainable Architecture and The Triple Bottom Line more thoroughly, I am working on reading two books thus far: The Triple Bottom Line by Andrew Savitz, and Sustainable Healthcare Architecture by Robin Guenther, and Gail Vittori

Since I decided to specifically focus on a healthcare business for my project, Reading Sustainable Healthcare Architecture allowed me to make a further connection between the concept of The Triple Bottom Line and the important things that factor into making sustainable healthcare architecture. For example: In The Triple Bottom Line, to achieve sustainability, the Three P’s : “People”, “Profit” and “Planet” must be considered. The example I identified dealt with the “People” part, in the case of sustainable healthcare architecture, the design must satisfy the patients’ needs.

I was also able to look into the importance of Sustainable Healthcare Architecture, and the general idea I picked up is that: Healthcare is a field that is constantly evolving, with constant new technologies and new medicines.  This makes the requirements for healthcare buildings consistently increasing. This means that Healthcare buildings will not last a long time, not because of the physical building, but the requirements. Often healthcare buildings cannot keep up with the changes and have to be demoted from acute care buildings. To find somewhat of a solution, there is the term “Life Cycle Thinking.” This means to make a healthcare building sustainable, we would have to look at it over its lifespan, from its creation to its deterioration.

There are so many factors I haven’t considered that play a part in sustainability and I cannot wait to read more about sustainable healthcare architecture.

For the next few weeks, my project will be mainly research. I am preparing myself for when I find the healthcare business I will visit. Since there are few, I am still working on finding a sustainable healthcare business. I look forward to learning more about sustainable healthcare architecture, and how it relates to the Triple Bottom Line.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

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Comments:

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    mileshansen
    Sounds like you really hit the ground running with your research. I'm excited to see where your project goes. Let me know if you need anything.
    February 20, 2024 at 1:41 pm - Reply
    edie_l
    It sounds like you really enjoy your project, and I'm very happy for you! I'm interested in the sustainability of healthcare building, and never though they can't keep up with changes. I'm not sure if you stated this in your blog, but how do health care building go outdated? Like what are the requirements you mentioned that makes the healthcare building not last that long?
    February 25, 2024 at 8:16 am - Reply
    edward_a
    You're for sure going on a great track, learning about exactly brings down the sustainability of the healthcare field, buildings are a great start since hospitals are no small building. So far do you have any idea of resolutions for the problems of sustainability that you've researched? Good luck with the future of your poject!
    February 25, 2024 at 3:15 pm - Reply
    nathan_s
    Although it makes sense that requirements are always increasing, I never considered the effect that would have on the architecture and building design. thank you for sharing!
    April 9, 2024 at 12:42 pm - Reply

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