Technologically Enhanced Environments and the Human Sensorium

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design
University of Toronto
230 College Street, Toronto, Canada

The last quarter century has witnessed a massive transformation in our conception of the human largely facilitated by information technology and a digitally augmented sensorium. This transformation has profound implications for both the medical and the aesthetic disciplines yielding affinities that are relevant to healthcare design.

This conference will begin the public discourse that will be continued in our new Health Design graduate studies program currently in the planning stages. It begins a dialogue between medicine and aesthetics examining the capacity for design to align evidence with intuition, quantitative analysis with qualitative judgment, science with art. The conference interrogates current ideas and practices defining the role of design in the promotion of health while seeking to foster an appreciation of how the forms of affective and cognitive experience associated with environmental aesthetics may clarify and amplify the goals that motivate therapeutic practices and institutions.

Treating architecture as the locus for the convergence of medical and aesthetics agendas, the conference aims to promote this dialogue at three scales and according to three thematic rubrics. The first rubric, Corporealities, will focus on the body; the second rubric, Atmospheres, will focus on the built environment; the third rubric, Networks, will focus on the physical and informational infrastructures that traverse and situate the built environment.

The two-day conference is followed by workshops that bring ideas from all three rubrics to bear directly on practical considerations: "Responsive Wards: How Ambient Technologies Enhance Patient Experience and Recovery; "Conversation with the Dean: Designing the CAMH Complex; "From Sink to Precinct; Healthcare in the Age of Pandemics" and "Evidence Based Design: Application to Critical Care and Acute Care".

http://www.paisajesemergentes.com/  

Paisajes Emergentes operates from Medellín, Colombia and was founded in 2007 by architects Edgar Mazo, Sebastián Mejia and Luis Callejas. The partners teach at the Bolivariana University in Medellín. They have been guest lecturers at Harvard GSD, Arizona State University, UPC Lima, Perú, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá ,Pontificia universidad Javeriana, Bogotá and PKN Bogotá. They have also participated at the Hydrocity exhibition for the Toronto Free Gallery, segunda bienal de Canarias and 11 Biennale de Venezia. Their projects have been published in Mark 20, Frame 69, Arquine, 40 - 60, Paisajismo 50, Proyecto Diseño, Space magazine, Scape, 2G dossiere, among others.

The studio has won the following awards:

First prize, renovation of “El Campin” Stadium, Bogotá, 2009

Third prize, design of the cultural park valparaiso, Chile, 2009

Second prize, design of “La Aurora” kindergarden, Medellín, 2009

Honorable mention, design of the bicentenary cultural center in Bogotá, 2008

Second prize, renovation of Barranquilla’s historical center, Barranquilla, 2008

Second prize, transformation of the Quito airport into an urban park, Quito, Ecuador, 2008

First prize, design of the aquatic complex for the 2010 South American sport games, Medellín, 2008

Third Prize, design of the Bowling alley building for the South American Sport games, Medellín, 2008

Finalist project, 2G international competition “Venice Lagoon park”, Barcelona, España, 2007

Second prize IX Arquine competition, Mexico, 2006

The studio has the following projects built or under construction:

The aquatic complex for the 2010 South American sport games, Medellín

The renovation of “El campin Stadium” Bogotá

House on a slope, Medellín

The exhibition design for the “Medellín under transformation” exposition for the 50 BID anual meeting

Fog installation for the XIX Iberoamerican Theather Festival in Bogota