Commercial Contract & Healthcare Studio

Since the semester is coming to a close and our projects are mostly over, I decided to look at Steelcase’s article “ Room for Error ”. Of course, none of our designs are perfect, so there are plenty of opportunities for us to learn from our mistakes. In this article, Steelcase points out the fact that pacemakers, Post-It Notes, as well as Cornflakes all came from failures. Glitches can become textile patterns or used in video art. Out of focus photographs can be considered high art. It is what you do with your failures that can turn into successes. This way of thinking reminds me of receiving critiques and continually being able to develop, refine, and better our projects. It’s nice that our profession allows us to constantly improve as designers. Part of developing as designers includes trying different types of design – whether it be residential, office, healthcare, education, hospitality, and so on. Office and healthcare design has stood out to me specifically for different...

This week, I decided to research an article looking back and focusing on how Steelcase views time spent in healthcare situations. In their article “ Making Every Moment Meaningful ”, Steelcase discusses how individuals experience healthcare and how, most of the time, they cannot make the most of their time because they spend so long waiting for direction, waiting for consultation, or waiting for results. Patients are squeezed into small waiting areas, anxious and uncomfortable because there are no direct sight lines to the caregiver nor is there a focus on privacy. It is obvious that most clinics and hospitals do not account for how patients will want to spend their time, and Steelcase wants to change that. They explain that people want control over how they spend their time, whether it be consulting with a physician, watching instructional videos, waiting for key information, or simply relaxing. There are other practical concerns, as well, such as the need for a place to stor...

This week, I chose to research why exactly heathcare design is so important. Steelcase’s article “ Problem Solving + Passion Fuel Healthcare Design ” gives some insight as to why good healthcare design is so necessary. Each one of us has some sort of experience involving healthcare, whether it be a hospital or a clinic, and those experiences shape our opinions of healthcare. While experiences involving healthcare can be extremely positive, such as welcoming a new baby into the world, they can also strongly impact us in a negative way, such as a learning that a family member has cancer or another degenerative disease. Some of Steelcase’s furniture designers have encountered situations such as these, and the experiences fueled their empathy for those who rely on healthcare design and encouraged them to create spaces and furniture that can support those who spend a lot of time in hospitals and clinics. Designing furniture for healthcare is very difficult, because designers have t...

Steelcase has done some research on how to create inspiring spaces for work, and their findings are found in their article “ Design,Materiality + Performance Inspire at Work .” The question Steelcase asked was - what makes people choose to work in one space over another? The basic answer for that question is that employees seek out spaces that allow them to feel comfortable, help them think better, and support their ability to solve problems. The way we as designers can create these spaces for employees is through design, materiality, and performance. The design of your workspace should focus on the wellbeing of people by allowing them choice and control over how and where they get their work done. Combinations of social spaces, focus spaces, and collaboration spaces allow employees to choose the environment in which they can complete their work. These choices drive overall work performance of employees everywhere. Many people view materiality as being simply decoration or...