The Health Care / Health Design forum in Sydney, to be held 24 October, will explore the critical role of design in the future of health and aged care. Bringing together leading practitioners and researchers, the forum will discuss the issues and experiences in creating world-class healthcare facilities.
The speakers, from the USA, UK, Sydney, and around Australia, will interrogate the relationships between best practice in health design and the delivery of health care.
Rama Gheerawo.
Image: supplied
A key focus of the conference will be the increasing urgency around the design of aged care living, which will be explored through a panel discussion on the “future of living,” chaired by Rama Gheerawo, director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, the Royal College of Art’s oldest design research centre that focuses on inclusive design. Gheerawo will also present a keynote address at the forum.
Katelin Butler, editorial director of Architecture Media, said, “It is clear that the question of what constitutes good design for an ageing population is something that doesn’t attract the sort of attention it demands.
“This year we’re bringing together a really interesting mix of designers and thinkers, who have each tackled this question of how to best design for some of the most vulnerable people in inventive, thoughtful and sometimes quite surprising ways.”
The panelists include Ann-Maree Ruffles, design director for seniors living at Thomson Adsett, who has specific experience in inclusive and adaptive design for disability, ageing in place and aged care. Ruffles’s design process involves assisting aged-care and seniors living organizations in understanding their philosophies, and collaborating with them in preparing their design guidelines to ensure these philosophies are manifested in their built communities.
Joining Ruffles will be Damian Barker, design director of Jackson Teece. Barker brings specialist skills in ecologically sustainable design to the practice’s projects. His recent projects include the Flame Tree in Sydney for aged care provider Thomas Holt. The project received the Urban Design Institute of Australia’s 2018 UDIA Award For Excellence in Aged Care.
Architect Vanessa Bird of Bird de la Coeur Architects, immediate past president of the Victorian chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects will round out the panel. Bird de la Coeur specializes in housing, including a range of retirement housing projects. Bird has a particular interest in experimental housing models developed through an exploration of the local context, which can be seen in projects like the Atherton Gardens Social Housing (designed with McCabe Architects), the Roi apartments and Wedmore House.
Health Care/Health Design is part of Design Speaks, a series of talks, seminars, forums and conferences on architecture and design, for design professionals and their clients and interested members of the wider community.
For a full list of speakers, visit the Design Speaks website.
Design Speaks events are organized by Architecture Media, publisher of ArchitectureAU.
