FURNITURE DESIGN
Balancing aesthetics with safety and security
Jason Brown, director of Design and Development at Knightsbridge Furniture, takes a look at some of the key considerations – including the challenge of balancing appealing aesthetics and a therapeutic, non-institutional feel with safety and security – when designing and manufacturing furniture for mental healthcare settings.
Furniture (fur¦ni|ture) – noun: ‘The movable articles that are used to make a room or building suitable for living or working in, such as tables, chairs or desks.’ The lexicon – in this case Oxford Dictionaries Online – makes ‘furniture’ sound so mundane. Yet, as with most aspects of mental health life, reality belies the apparent simplicity, and at Knightsbridge we fully embrace this. Fitting out a complex environment catering for the 24/7 needs of service- users, visitors, and staff, is a challenge best left to experts – although stakeholder input is also absolutely key – as those interior designers and buyers charged with the task of furnishing a hospital or other healthcare facility will testify. However, the responsibility for furnishing
today’s healthcare facilities no longer lies exclusively with interior designers and purchasing managers. Manufacturers also have an increasingly important role to play through the development and commercial production of furniture which matches the demands of the healthcare arena – demands which are both precise and manifold.
Meeting multiple needs As a result of working closely with customers, specialist manufacturers such as Knightsbridge Furniture have been able to bring furniture collections to market which are designed to meet needs across all areas of hospital life, whether catering for defined user groups, answering clinical
requirements, or actively addressing generic issues such as infection control, tissue viability, or the care of service- users with behavioural problems and even dementia. Infection control remains at the core
of facility routines, and extensive R&D investment among key players in the contract furnishing sector has resulted in the introduction of healthcare seating designed specifically to reduce the spread of hospital-acquired infections. For some time, antibacterial upholstery fabrics and lacquers applied to exposed timber have been standard weapons in the fight against HAIs. However, fundamental design elements now underpin healthcare seating to control contaminant build-up: seat/
Left to right: The Jaguar, Cheetah, Bugatti, Menea, and Lexie Ranges of seating – all specifically designed ‘in-house’ for challenging environments and their users.
THE NETWORK | MAY 2022 29
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