Open Room. Flessibilità e Prefabbricazione nelle Architetture per la Salute del Futuro

Background. Several scholars have emphasized hospital obsolescence in relation to social, technological and medical advancements. Several attempts have been made in the history of architecture with approaches in flexibility, demonstrating their weaknesses of rigid and expensive results. An effective strategy to deal with constant surface flexibility, applied to healthcare facilities is the Open Building (OB). Such new organizational paradigm is focused on Primary (structure), Secondary (components) and Tertiary (equipment) systems. Objectives, purpose and aim. Starting from the OB concept, the aim is to define a conceptual design of a prefabricated room for healing environments, called Open Room (OR). Methods and Results. A deep analysis of the scientific literature and case studies allowed to define all the human and technological needs for each hospital environmental unit. The application of OB approach to the OR permitted to define Primary, Secondary and Tertiary systems at the micro-scale of the environmental unit. The primary consists in the structure that hosts the open rooms, the secondary into a prefabricated module with all the possible technologies necessary for hospital environments, the tertiary as the finishing materials and furniture.The paper dedicates particular attention to the Tertiary System, that is the layer perceived by users. Conclusions. The solution addresses qualitative and strategic issues, showing the possibility of reducing cost and adding value to future healthcare environments. A rapid construction system provides flexible, safe and customizable environments, enhancing the patient/client experience within a controlled and protected healing process.