A hospital with a large glass roof and a parking lot with people and bikes.

Research Project Name

Exploring the Hospital of the Future

What We Did

The healthcare industry is undergoing a seismic shift as it faces growing pressure from financial constraints, workforce shortages, and the urgent need to address climate change. Traditional hospitals, while long considered the cornerstone of acute care, are increasingly unsuited to meet these evolving demands. They are costly to build and operate, often lack energy efficiency, and may not support long-term performance, adaptability, or community needs. In response to these challenges, our team developed Horizon, the Hospital of the Future — a design concept that explores how healthcare infrastructure could radically evolve to meet the needs of tomorrow. This vision proposes a right-sized hospital focused solely on the most acute cases, while shifting less intensive care to more flexible, lower-cost settings, such as community health hubs and home-based care. The concept integrates sustainable building systems, high-efficiency operations, and a modular design strategy that can adapt over time. The goal is to demonstrate how a more compact, climate-responsive, and technologically advanced hospital could deliver measurable improvements in patient care, cost savings, and environmental performance. The research affirms that sustainability, financial efficiency, and human-centered design are not competing goals, but essential components of healthcare transformation.

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Team

Bonny Slater, Geoffrey Diamond, Randy Guillot, Tatiana Guimaraes, James Crispino, Michael Schur, Yuan Chen

Year Completed

2024