Rethinking space for a new era of healthcare
Digitalisation is transforming healthcare into a dynamic, interconnected network. Now is the time to reimagine healthcare environments, says Oana Gavriliu, Principal and healthcare architect.
For decades, healthcare has been structured as a hierarchical, service-based system, where care is delivered in fixed, purpose-built, function-specific spaces. But this rigid, siloed model is struggling to keep pace with the rapid evolution of health sciences, digital technology, and users’ expectations.
Healthcare is no longer just a series of transactions between patients and providers — it’s becoming a fluid, interconnected ecosystem, where people, places, data and technology function as a dynamic, adaptive network.
DIGITALISATION: SHAPING THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE, SPACES AND EXPERIENCES
Healthcare’s transformation into a network is reshaping how care is delivered, how spaces function and how people interact with the system. By integrating advanced digital technologies, healthcare providers can improve efficiency, utilisation, energy savings, and outcomes, creating a more connected, adaptable, and responsive system. With the need to deliver more care within constrained budgets and limited resources, digitalisation offers a critical solution, driving significant efficiencies and enabling healthcare systems to do more with less.
Digitalisation is enabling better utilisation and maintenance of healthcare assets, from hospital buildings to medical equipment. Digital twins (virtual replicas of physical environments) allow real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and simulation of operational scenarios. By integrating building management systems, IoT sensors, and AI-driven analytics, facilities can optimise energy consumption, reduce waste, and extend asset lifespans, supporting decarbonisation goals.
AI, automation, and real-time data analytics promise to revolutionise clinical workflows — streamlining admissions, diagnostics, and treatment planning while reducing inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
By automating administrative and repetitive tasks will be able to focus on what matters most: patient care, research, professional development and collaboration.
Augmented and virtual reality are already enhancing professional development, allowing clinicians to refine their skills in immersive training environments before real-world application.
BEYOND EFFICIENCY
At a human level, digitalisation is transforming patient and caregiver experiences, offering greater autonomy, choice and access to real-time support. Remote monitoring, telehealth, and AI-driven diagnostics enable personalised care anywhere — at home, in the community, or in a hospital. Wearables, mobile apps, and smart home technologies empower individuals and caregivers to be actively involved in monitoring conditions, managing treatments, and making informed decisions, bridging geographical gaps and making specialist care more accessible.
A truly digitalised healthcare system, like the one the NHS in the UK is aiming to achieve, thrives on real-time, integrated data, allowing services to evolve in direct response to emerging needs, population trends, and medical advancements. Data-driven decision-making will support continuous improvement, ensuring that hospitals and clinics can adapt dynamically without requiring disruptive overhauls. AI and big data will help forecast demand, optimise staffing, and refine treatment protocols, while integrated data platforms will enable seamless collaboration across clinicians, researchers, and community health workers. The result? More personalised, proactive, and predictive care, driving better patient outcomes.
FROM HEALTHCARE AS A SERVICE TO HEALTHCARE AS A NETWORK
Healthcare and health sciences are evolving exponentially. The traditional linear models of care delivery — primary, secondary, and tertiary — are transforming into a vast and interconnected network of people, professions, ideas, and technologies. But what does this mean? How does the shift from a hierarchical system to a dynamic, decentralised network change how we think about healthcare spaces? We are witnessing an era of diversification like never before.
The healthcare system is no longer defined by standalone hospitals or clinics but by a web of interconnected entities spanning care, research, industry, and academia.
At one end, health innovation clusters are bringing together medical providers, academics, researchers, biotech, biomed and pharmaceutical leaders to collaborate on breakthrough treatments. Hassell’s work at Herston Quarter in Brisbane, Australia with its subsequent developments, Herston Quarter STARS and Herston Biofabrication Institute, and Townsville University Hospital and James Cook University Master Plan (TropiQ) and associated projects, are great examples of this trend.
At the other end, we see community-based care expanding in all directions — primary, elective, mental health, child and adolescent, aged and assisted care — integrating public, private, and industry-led providers into a fluid and responsive system.
And we’re also seeing these two types of cluster developments coming together to create a community around care, as seen in Murdoch Square in Perth, Western Australia, the first development in the Murdoch Health and Innovation Precinct, taking shape in the vicinity of the Fiona Stanley Hospital, St John of God Private Hospital, and Murdoch University.
With this shift, how we design and redevelop campuses, buildings, and healthcare environments must evolve too. The pace of change in medical science, service models, and technology is accelerating, meaning that spaces must be able to adapt more fluidly than ever before. If care itself is becoming more networked, should our buildings continue to be designed around rigid, single-use typologies?
Instead of creating prescriptive, custom-designed spaces for specific medical activities, we need multifunctional and multidimensional environments that can hold a variety of uses and users and can evolve and adapt as needs change. Standardisation should no longer mean specificity and uniformity, but flexibility — reducing overly specific typologies in favour of a versatile, scalable kit of parts, spaces and systems that allow seamless reconfiguration as services and technologies evolve.
THE HEALTHCARE CAMPUS AS AN ECOSYSTEM
Perhaps the best way to envision the future of healthcare estates is to see them as dynamic ecosystems — interconnected, self-sustaining, and constantly evolving to meet changing needs.
The foundational scaffold provides stability and resilience — the built elements, structures, infrastructure, cores, and bridges, form a strong, scalable base that supports transformation, much like the underlying geology and waterways of a natural ecosystem.
The energy flow keeps everything functional — services, technology, and resources move through the system, like sunlight and nutrients power plant growth. Efficient services, workflows, logistics, and digital infrastructure act as the vascular system, ensuring smooth and sustainable operation.
The evolving community of species — departments, services, tenants, and technologies — shifts roles, adapting to new discoveries and demands, like species in nature migrate, evolve, or change function based on environmental pressures.
The interconnectivity and relationships between users — patients, clinicians, researchers, caregivers, and partners — drive collaboration and knowledge-sharing, mimicking the symbiotic relationships that sustain biodiversity in a thriving ecosystem.
The self-regulation and sustainability mechanisms — smart automation, AI-driven decision-making, and predictive analytics — ensure balance and efficiency, like the natural feedback loops that keep ecosystems in equilibrium.
The catalysts of change — the people, ideas, and innovations — act as the regenerative force, driving continuous adaptation, just as keystone species and environmental shifts shape the evolution of natural habitats.
Can we design new and upgraded healthcare environments that are not just buildings but self-sustaining, regenerative ecosystems— capable of adapting, evolving, and responding to the unknown?
FLEXIBLE CAMPUS PLANNING FOR ADAPTABLE GROWTH
A growing trend in creating an adaptable healthcare estate is to establish a flexible framework for development, prioritising zoning and connectivity over prescriptive buildings. Defining campuses as a network of high, medium, and low-tech zones with adaptable buildings allows for interchangeable clinical and non-clinical uses. This can be supported by infrastructure that can grow as needed and complemented by diverse commercial and residential spaces, making health campuses inherently more adaptable and sustainable.
In the reimagined campus, the public realm — with its plazas, green spaces, pedestrian pathways, retail spaces and communal areas — acts as the social glue, fostering interaction, collaboration, and a sense of belonging among the increasingly diverse community of users. Moving away from traditional siloed buildings and professions, this approach supports collaborative, cross-disciplinary working and scalable growth strategies. By embracing adaptability over rigid, linear expansion models, healthcare campuses can evolve dynamically, responding seamlessly to emerging needs while cultivating a diverse, resilient, interconnected, and people-centred health community.
But could we take adaptability even further? Rather than designing departments in fixed locations with numerous, specialised, standardised room types, could healthcare spaces be a shared resource for all to use?
Could we distil the standard room types down to a reduced set of core typologies — ones that flex and shift with the needs of different users and tenants, times of day, or clinical or non-clinical functions? Technology must be leveraged to enable this transformation — AI-assisted scheduling, real-time occupancy tracking, and modular design strategies will ensure that spaces are used efficiently, reducing bottlenecks, and optimising care delivery.
Could we distil the standard room types down to a reduced set of core typologies — ones that flex and shift with the needs of different users and tenants, times of day, or clinical or non-clinical functions? Technology must be leveraged to enable this transformation — AI-assisted scheduling, real-time occupancy tracking, and modular design strategies will ensure that spaces are used efficiently, reducing bottlenecks, and optimising care delivery.
What if a consultation room could, with the flick of a switch, transform into a treatment or procedure space, or function as a hybrid meeting space, or workroom?
Could a patient room seamlessly accommodate both overnight stays and day treatments, as well as acute and step-down patients, flexing its use as needs arise? Could it also be a multi-disciplinary consulting room with remote specialists dialling in to discuss treatment plans with patients and local clinicians? Could gardens, cafes, and information hubs become the waiting spaces?
Imagine a hospital designed like a responsive ecosystem — where plug-in elements adapt to purpose, moveable partitions shape new environments, adjustable furniture and mobile equipment adapt to activity, and smart technology seamlessly reconfigures the environment to suit different users. Could we create spaces that don’t just serve one function, but multiple, reducing inefficiency and maximising adaptability?
A CALL TO ACTION: A COLLECTIVE VISION TO REIMAGINE THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE
The digitalisation of healthcare is not just about efficiency — it’s about transformation. As healthcare shifts from a service to a network, the spaces that support it must evolve too. The challenge ahead is not just about designing for today’s needs but about creating environments and spaces that thrive on change, allowing the future to unfold organically within them. Now is the time to reimagine health environments — not as static single-use buildings, but as living, evolving ecosystems that grow with their communities and adapt to the future of healthcare.
Collective vision and action from across the healthcare, design, technology industries, academia and government are essential to actively shape this transformation and drive integrated, adaptable solutions. This also demands innovative funding strategies — combining public investment, private sector agility and alternative finance mechanisms — to support long-term cross-sector collaboration. By fostering open co-operation and a shared commitment to innovation, we can build a healthcare system that is resilient, inclusive, regenerative, and future-ready for all.
Images 1 (top) and 2 - Adobe stock imagery
