Holistic care is nothing new. There are well‐known examples across the world and throughout history – from ancient Greece, China and India to early 20th‐century northern Europe – of approaches that prioritise placemaking as a facilitator for health and healing. Inspired by such precedents, London‐based architects Penoyre & Prasad produce buildings that engage with nature and help put patients back in control of their recovery process. Sunand Prasad, one of the firm's cofounders, explains.
The kind of investigation that the Department of Education and Skills (DfES) has brought about through its exemplar design initiative should be commonplace in architectural culture. For an exemplar design is, or should be, an embodiment of theory in a particularly clear and intense way. The DfES has given 11 architects the opportunity to theorize school environments and contribute realizable ideal designs in the context of the biggest investment in primary and secondary education for over a generation.
In case there was any doubt, the discussions in recent issues of arq, and from other coverage of the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), demonstrate that the role, status and purpose of research in the field of architecture at the beginning of the twenty-first century are problematic to say the least. The nature of architectural practice is at an equally problematic stage, with the profession appearing to many weak, disorganized and ill-equipped to stand up to external threats of various kinds. And although it is common to hear the view – which we subscribe to – that connections between academic research (and the schools more generally) and professional practice are poor and ought to be improved, it is not easy to work out whether this state of affairs is more a cause or a consequence of the difficulties on both sides.
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