HEALTHCARE DESIGN


my own experience, the study has received NHS ethical approval to engage with staff and former patients. The study focuses on three hospital environments typical of the UK healthcare estate – an old facility suffering from extensive back-log maintenance (University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff) a refurbished facility (The Haematology and Oncology Centre, Bristol), and a new facility (The Grafton Way Building, UCLH London). Patients who have experienced time receiving an allogeneic stem-cell transplant in an isolation setting are being interviewed to obtain their recollections and opinions about their isolation experience. Similarly, clinical staff are also being interviewed to obtain their views about how the isolation room might impact their ability to treat and engage with patients. The intention is to refocus the view of isolation using a more forensic lens with an emphasis on daily patient and staff activity throughout the period of treatment. Using my own experience as both patient and architect


provides a unique blend of insight and empathy. Indeed, to support engagement I have analysed my own time in isolation by illustrating daily activities within the space. Consideration of what I did, using which items or ‘things’ in which part of the space, at different times throughout each day, perhaps illustrates the day-to-day experience of isolation in a more meaningful manner, especially when overlaid with thoughts and emotions which were prevalent at the time. Core daily activities have therefore been ‘mapped’ in the space to understand how I lived in the room and how it may or may not have influenced my response to confinement. This approach is influenced to some degree by the work of architect Sarah Wigglesworth, who has used the concept of ‘activity mapping’ in analysing how a domestic dining table might be used over the course of an evening


Spending three weeks in isolation receiving a stem-cell transplant highlighted just how different it was from the typical inpatient experience. The combination of a gruelling treatment burden with fear and social separation created a unique set of factors that maybe are not fully considered by designers.


and what this might mean for the design of a house and how a designer might approach it. In her paper The Disorder of the Dining Table9


she states the following:


Accepting the accidents, embracing the unexpected, and learning to admire ‘the dirt’ that results, is part of acknowledging that life isn’t always as we expected; and this challenges our ability, as architects, to predict and manage the realities of lived experience. Applying this thinking to an auto-ethnographic account of occupation of a space begins to suggest a number of techniques to analyse this and to inform engagement with study participants.


September 2026 Health Estate Journal 47


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136