As the Netherlands continues to close more of its healthcare facilities, TU Delft researchers are turning to urban design to help pick up the pieces.
Over the course of one semester, students and alumni at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment will research and develop new concepts for healthcare –elderly care in particular– in the cities of Deventer and Zuid-Scharwoude. Commissioned by the Office of the Dutch State Architect, in cooperation with the International New Town Institute and headed by the TU Delft Chair of Design as Politics, the design studio We Care a Lot aims to redefine healthcare facilities left vacant by the overhaul of the Dutch healthcare system.
“The Netherlands is currently going through one of the biggest changes in its healthcare system since the Second World War,” said Design as Politics’ Mike Emmerik. “The current policy of extramuralisation means that more (elderly) people have to be cared for at home. As a result, an increasing number of healthcare facilities are closing. Studies have shown that around 80 care homes have already closed their doors, while 800 of the 2000 elderly care facilities are expected to disappear in the coming years.”
According to Emmerik, neighbourhoods from the 1960s were often planned around social real estate such as schools, hospitals and community centres. The closure of these healthcare facilities will have a significant impact on the functioning and logic of urban areas. “Not only does it create an enormous surge in vacant real estate in the middle of communities,” Emmerik claimed, “it also removes the social heart of these neighbourhoods.” Although many studies have been conducted on new organisation and financing models for these neighbourhoods, there remains a lack of research on how to design them.
“By researching and designing for these two locations, we hope to find spatial elements and solutions that may be applicable to other locations that deal with the same issues,” Emmerik said. “At the same time, we hope to start a debate in the architecture community about these issues and bring the worlds of healthcare, architecture and city planning closer together.”
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