Research, Laboratory & Scientific – Nycum + Associates https://nycum.com Meaningful Work & Thoughtful Collaboration Wed, 01 May 2024 17:20:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.11 Environments for Aging 2024 https://nycum.com/attending-environments-for-aging/ Tue, 16 Apr 2024 16:51:00 +0000 https://nycum.com/?p=1536 Several members of the Nycum staff attended the 2024 Environments for Aging conference, held in Atlanta, Georgia, from Apri 14-16, 2024. After attending so many inspirational and educational sessions at the conference, we returned to the office eager to share what’s going on in the world of design for spaces in which people will live as they age.

The Environments for Aging conference and expo is an annual destination for professionals in the senior living space. It’s a gathering of administrators, designers, builders, front-line workers, developers, and researchers to discuss the latest strategies and ideas for creating functional and attractive living environments that meet the needs of an aging world.

Environments for Aging

]]> COVID-19 & Architecture https://nycum.com/covid-19-architecture/ Fri, 15 May 2020 18:17:00 +0000 http://www.nycum.com/?p=1195 We always love the energy and ideas brought to our team by our co-op students, and this year is no exception. Our current masters-level co-op student from Dalhousie University, Hadrian Laing, has penned a great blog post for Nanuk Technologies that we think encapsulates many of the issues surrounding COVID-19 and the way the pandemic may impact how we talk about, use and design space going forward. We may be partial though, Hadrian worked hard to canvas us all for our opinions and generate debate during our weekly remote-working happy hours as he prepared his insights.

Links

]]> Superconvergence and the Future of Healthcare Facilities https://nycum.com/superconvergence-and-the-future-of-healthcare-facilities/ https://nycum.com/superconvergence-and-the-future-of-healthcare-facilities/#respond Tue, 05 May 2015 12:39:58 +0000 http://www.nycum.com/?p=669 This year’s annual CHES conference opened with a keynote address from Benjie Nycum that delved into the changes on the horizon for healthcare facilities planning. Here is a bit from his abstract:

Healthcare challenges in the future do not have a roadmap of experiences on which to create policies and plans, but they will be real, massive and swift: Technology-driven change is coming to healthcare that will combine with real pressures to disrupt almost every current healthcare practice. We have seen this disruption happen to other industries (for example the music industry in the 00’s presently in education and the taxi business). Much of this change has been good for consumers, but for providers it has created a new landscape. Unlike for other industries and service providers, technology-driven change has been slow and incremental for healthcare because there is so much liability and risk. But once these factors are overcome, the current paradigm will be massively disrupted. Most of the change will not be predictable or created and managed by the people in the know. It will come through the backdoor in unexpected ways. The driver of this disruption will be the superconvergence of technologies combined with diminished financial and human resources. The current planning window for any healthcare facility must recognize that plans will be implemented during this disruption so it is very important to avoid applying current assumptions. Things to think about:
• What are the factors and technologies leading to this disruption?
• How will the roles of patients and healthcare providers change?
• What will be the role of facilities when technology enables healthcare to be delivered in environments created by algorithms and networks rather than bricks and mortar?
• What is the future of the hospital?
• How do we get ahead of this so we can seize it as an opportunity rather than be subordinated to it?

]]> https://nycum.com/superconvergence-and-the-future-of-healthcare-facilities/feed/ 0 Dartmouth General Hospital Renovations Start Construction https://nycum.com/dartmouth-general-hospital-renovations-start-construction/ https://nycum.com/dartmouth-general-hospital-renovations-start-construction/#respond Tue, 05 May 2015 12:39:32 +0000 http://www.nycum.com/?p=655 New team centres at the heart of the patient wing will enable better work and material flow, protect patient confidentiality and enable the hospital’s innovative Bullet Rounds. The new team centres are located in the middle of the patient wing, decentralizing some of the typical tasks that take place in the traditional nursing station. Bullet round rooms enable efficient and confidential conversations about patient care. Patient washrooms are also upgraded along with utility spaces and processes to enable improved material flows. Hand hygiene sinks have also been added. The work will take place in phases on a unit-by-unit basis.

April 30, 2015

]]> https://nycum.com/dartmouth-general-hospital-renovations-start-construction/feed/ 0 Mind Architecture: Utopian Parallels in Architecture and Psychiatry https://nycum.com/mind-architecture-utopian-parallels-in-architecture-and-psychiatry/ https://nycum.com/mind-architecture-utopian-parallels-in-architecture-and-psychiatry/#respond Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:39:48 +0000 http://www.nycum.com/?p=658 On September 11, 2014, Benjie Nycum presented the R.O. Jones Memorial Lecture at the Canadian Psychiatric Association Annual conference in Toronto. Here is a bit from the original abstract:

In recent decades, the debate over institutionalization vs. de-institutionalization has highlighted the tensions that continue to exist between architecture and psychiatric care and treatment. This is nothing new: architecture and psychiatry have shared parallel and intertwined roles in the care and treatment of persons with mental illness for the past 200 years. For example, the influential Kirkbride asylum design formalized the theory that the built environment was a key factor in the cure of mental illness in the middle of the 19th century. Psychiatric architecture reflects moral beliefs and social systems of urbanization, community, shelter, control and our quest for utopia. It is therefore not surprising that they each address social issues with solutions that are usually prescriptive but occasionally utterly inspiring.

As the professions of psychiatry and architecture face the future, changes like virtualization, technology, convergence, integration, and availability of resources will drastically alter the social needs they serve. Present day Psychiatry will increasingly be unburdened by the need for space in which to do its work, providing an opportunity to lead all types of medical practice through the transformation of healthcare, society, and the built environment.

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