"So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals"- Genesis 2:20. Similar to the ways early man named everything that he saw around him, historians and educators had to find names for definitions of activities, phenomenon,events and like Scientists who tried to explain in one word what on earth they were doing, Architects soon realized to term the concepts they could talk on for several hours into one to three words.
This started effectively decades back when there was an Architectural Movement that was springing at the dawn of every new year or decade. Terms like sustainability, sustainable development, green buildings, Eco Architecture, Bio morphic, philic Architecture are some of the recent terms that Architecture students use in their concept stage completely convinced that those styles or movements could be used as a concept for their project.
One such term 'Health District' has boomed in the recent years due to the shifting paradigm of Health care design in the West. Reading their Research Journal vol 06.02, breaks down any preconceived notion one may have when they hear the term. It is not used to define a hospital that is integrated with its community, multiple health centers connected, or planning a new district for health and well being of the people. But the Journal uses beautiful terms not just to define 'Health District', it also uses deeper connection in these terms to explain the reader what a Health District could potentially mean to its context. It quotes " Health District is a HUB that INTEGRATES and LINKS across the CONTINUUM of care,.... integrated in the SURROUNDING COMMUNITY with PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE, distinguished from its context only by its specific uses and character".(pg.58).
Also this definition best suits their Health District planning for Baton Rouge Health District Plan in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The terms they use for explaining their works about this 1000 Acre plan says how a health care district planning could be approached by improving the existing community conditions and not just building new infrastructures. The Project's goal is "to improve traffic flow and guide smart growth around two regional medical centers in South Baton Rouge".
Their main proposal involves, highway, streets, boulevards, other transit elements that could efficiently connect the new health centers that are proposed and the existing street infrastructure and community. Their proposals for the health centers and other building units are based on the community needs.
I wish we all could have such confidence and ambition to intervene into existing community and street conditions and enhance the context to modify it into a health district. I believe we should not be 'designing' health districts, but should work to modify even the best and worst places on earth into health districts.
References:
https://perkinswill.com/work/Health%20District%20Planning
Perkins+Will Research Journal, Basak Alkan(2014)A vision and planning framework for Health Districts of the Future
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