The integration of the German health care system into the free market has increased the demand for efficiency. By and large, the process of privatization has disassociated the system from its original task of promoting people’s health in a sustainable and conscientious way.
What does society gain from the fact that health care and pharmaceutical companies (and their shareholders) make money by making people sick and keeping them sick? How can we, as designers, address the problem and eventually make a change? Based on these questions, Gabriel Dörner’s research project approaches the hospital as a health house, a place of public discourse where the vision of health for all people can be renegotiated. With the help of an interdisciplinary group of 20 student collaborators and several scientists, Dörner analyzed the state of hospitals in Thuringia and drafted various concepts for the holistic design of healing architecture.
In line with the Bauhaus’ approach, the project integrates various design disciplines to rethink the spatial and structural condition of hospitals and proposes holistic solutions along with artistic utopias of future healthcare architecture. Upon completion, conceptual drafts and other research results were discussed in a panel, presented in an exhibition, and compiled in a publication.