What's the Theme

What is in a topic? HCD Magazine

A clear theme inside is usual in restaurants and hotels." However, in recent years more and more health organisations, especially children's clinics, have started to adopt theme themes - and with good reasons. Remarkable interiors are a way for a clinic to differentiate itself from its competitors. However, a thorough grasp of the advantages and risks of themes, coupled with a rigorous approach and a rigorous approach, can dispel these misgivings and lead to rooms that not only satisfy sophisticated functionality and rigorous engineering demands, but also inspire customers and enders.

Recently, my company introduced a "Passport to Discovery" theme at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital in Minneapolis (see showcase here). Well, what's a subject? A subtle differentiation is made between an architectural interiors theme and an architectural interiors one. They both serve as a frame from which another style vocabulary can be created.

Whereas a conceptual approach is concerned with the baseline plan chart and defining the relation between different layout features, a theme is an overlap to a conceptual approach that will help connect all different rooms together. In the Amplatz children's hospital, the architectural layout was designed to maximise natural lighting, facilitate routing and improve the visitor environment by creating "light zones" at various points throughout the build.

Passing on this concept, the theme "Passport to Discovery" describes each storey as a distinct living space and assigns each clinic (sometimes several rooms on one storey) a narrator who is an animal from that space. Every client receives a "passport" at check-in; while driving through the clinic he receives a stamp on his pass.

The Amplatz Children's Clinic did not begin with a topic. Initially, our staff suggested an indoor approach that included wildlife tracks and other native features from the northernwoods of Minnesota to help them find their way. This inner adventure we used to call "A stroll in the forest". University of Minnesota's University of Minnesota staff visited several children's clinics across the nation before the initial stages of designing, and were amazed at the way unforgettable topics from these metrics were differentiated from their own institutions and helped to find their way.

You wanted a real theme for the interiors, not just Minnesota and the Northwoods, but Amplatz Children's Clinic as an institutional and global facility. If you develop and implement a topic, your customer should be your best ally. At the beginning an interieur topic should not be taken out of the cap.

Having refused the original "AWalk in the Woods " approach, we went back to the drafting table and did several designs in our in-house teams and with our customers. During these meetings, we found that the Amplatz Children's Clinic is characterised by top research, that it is proud of the "first" it has reached in paediatrics, and that its users come from all over the nation with different nationalities.

As we introduced the topic "Passport to Discovery", it was immediately a winning one. When we started to develop our own idea, we chose to follow a theme that offers many levels of information. The Amplatz Children's Clinic looks after children from infancy to adolescence in the 1920s, whose stay can range from a few nights to several weeks.

We wanted to make sure that the issue was of concern to those with longer hospital stays. As our aim was to design a piece of art rather than a gallery exhibition, we wanted a theme that could be integrated effortlessly into architectonic space. The theme would be embedded in wall, ceiling, ground pattern, light fittings, signs and furnishings.

This would determine the colour: green for the pasture soil, green for the dessert soil, and so on. Imagine the thematic "clues" in the various architectonic and graphical features that would be joined into a "treasure hunt" that would inspire outpatients to move on their floors, alleviate the tedium of a long period of hospitalization, and at the same time provide information about living spaces and the different civilizations they contain.

By working in close collaboration with the Amplatz Children's Clinic staff throughout the entire creative development phase, our customer became the main proponent of Passport to Discovery. Ensuring that their workshop advisor used the right colour accents for each park floor, they worked with their various suppliers to ensure that the narrators were integrated on the cover of the wall-mounted computer processors and on the hundred watches throughout the entire clinic.

Interiors offer several advantages to health institutions. Often a children's clinic is a clinic within a general institution for adults. There may be a number of sections in the complex, such as nursing homes, an ER, imagery and other service areas, which should be immediately recognised as an integrated part of the children's ward and should retain their own identity.

On Amplatz, "Passport to Discovery" creates a sense of oneness, and the living spaces and story-tellers for each patients' storey and each clinic show each individual. A theme for the interiors can help you to find your way. At the Amplatz Children's Hospitals, the ground in the hall of the building has a magnet north-facing design of a pocket hand held hand held hand held compass; children with a real hand held hand held compass could find their way to the university.

Storytellers for each storey are integrated into all signs. Search for a topic that is general enough to address many issues and be available to those with different interests, age and educational background. Ensure that your topic can be conveyed with a minimal number of gesture. Childrens hospitals can take care of up to 18 year olds, with both long and shorter sojourns.

Do not let your designs take a back seat to the architectural. Make a nice room that is unforgettable for the user, even if they do not "understand" the subject. Beginning with an architectural powerful creative idea will help. Then use the theme as an overlays. Thoroughly integrate the theme into your interiors through surfaces, ground textures and luminaires.

Embed graphical artwork and signs smoothly into your wall, ceiling and floor.