Healthcare Setting
The creative industry has shown a lot of interest in working on social issues, such as in the healthcare field. The Fund has been committed to this theme for a long time. The goal is to improve the quality of our healthcare and living environment through the efforts of designers.
The Covid crisis has made us think more than ever about health and healthcare. An ageing population, decentralization and technological developments had already been making new demands on healthcare provision. However, the pandemic has really thrown existing systems into relief and a new approach is inevitable. There is a growing awareness that health is not a ready-made product of our healthcare system, but that it has everything to do with how we organize our lives.
specific issues
In recent years, the Fund has used open calls to put specific issues on the agenda and involve multidisciplinary teams of designers, architects and healthcare professionals in working together on current challenges. New paths and possibilities have been explored through research by design. This method is ideally suited to bringing together the world of systems and the social and physical world. In the strategic phase, this process helps to focus on the challenges, to clarify them, to consider and connect the interests concerned, to organize support and to initiate new collaborations, creating scope for integral future perspectives and possible problem-solving approaches, but also for new insights into policy-making by governments and market participants.
community of practice
To stimulate the exchange of knowledge, the Fund initiates cooperative ventures and organizes meetings to exchange knowledge and experience and to present results. The Fund does this via the Embassy of Health, a collaboration between the Creative Industries Fund NL, Waag, Philips Experience Design, Máxima MC, DesignLab University of Twente, Health~Holland, AMS-IX, Health Hub Utrecht and the Dutch Design Foundation.
open calls
Through the Open Call New Housing Concepts for Homeless Youths, five design teams worked intensively with young people, municipalities and their local partners on integrated solutions to the problems these young people face. In the participation projects, a lot of attention was given to the underlying problems and, at the same time, to offering prospects for the future. By working with the young people in particular, the target group was given an important position in the change processes. The following five projects were selected in June 2020:
- A New Foundation, Being A Designer
- Return to Self-esteem, Garage2020
- House Hunger, Joes + Manon
- Residential Gardens, Site Practice
- Full Participation, TAAK
In collaboration with the Mondriaan Fund, the Fund offered eight work periods in the Re-creation artist-in-residence at healthcare institution Reinaerde. The artist-in-residence opened in January 2020 and is the heart of a programme developed by artists and social designers Sjaak Langenberg and Rosé de Beer.
De Heygraeff is home to 166 people with severe mental and/or physical disabilities who require 24-hour care. The focus of the artist-in-residence is to enlarge the world of both residents of De Heygraeff and Reinaerde employees, and to broaden the view that the environment has of people with a severe mental and/or physical disability.
The designers selected for the artist-in-residence were: Robin Weidner, Arvid & Marie, Maidie van den Bos and design duo Anne Fehres and Luke Conroy. Read more about the projects they set up during their work period here.
In November 2021, healthcare institution Reinaerde and Sjaak Langenberg and Rosé de Beer won the Elisabeth von Türingen prize with Re-creation, a prize for exemplary art projects in healthcare.
In search of new products, spatial interventions or health concepts that give people with (or with the prospect of) a chronic condition more control over their daily lives, the Fund, together with the Agis Innovatiefonds, launched the Open Call Chronically Healthy. Three challenges were formulated:
- own control in everyday life;
- strengthening self-reliance;
- people-oriented healthcare concepts.
Six coalitions of municipalities, care providers, welfare organizations, private initiators, entrepreneurs and people with a condition entered into collaborations with designers. The following six proposals were selected in March 2020:
- (Un)usually Living Well, Caro van Dijk Architecture
- Room 9, morgenmakers
- PhysicalFactory, Aurore Brard
- Stuck in Adolescence, Reframing Studio
- Mastering Fatigue, Open Concept
- Mirror Voice, Monobanda
Through the Open Call Designing a Community of Care, the Fund invited municipalities, care providers and housing corporations in the Netherlands to work with designers on the transition of care in the neighbourhood. This was prompted by the new demands placed on healthcare provision in our neighbourhoods by the ageing population, decentralization and technological developments.
Divided into four challenges, thirteen multidisciplinary teams developed surprising new insights and mindsets by applying the power of design. The following thirteen proposals were selected in August 2018:
Challenge 1: New housing
- Young Lived, Vanschagen Architecten
- Care for the District, KAW
- From Residential District to Livable District, De Unie Architecten
Challenge 2: Accessible districts
- Searching for the Gap, Laura Alvarez Architecture
- De Jol, TriMotion
- Experience Waldeck, Bureau od205 stedenbouw + landschap
Challenge 3: Take care of each other
- Hidden Talent, Nicky Liebregts & Manon van Hoeckel
- Rebuilding through Dialogue, Ester van de Wiel and Studio Makkink & Bey
- Re-creation, Sjaak Langenberg & Rosé de Beer
- Cascoland Van Deyssel, Cascoland
Challenge 4: New financial models
- Reframing Prevention, Reframing Studio
- ZelfregieHuis Delfshaven, Delfshaven Coöperatie
- The multifaceted Business Case for a Socially Intelligent Living Environment, Urban Frameworks
View the Designing a Community of Care reader, with stories from various parties in the healthcare field and specific examples from practice, here (in Dutch only). Listen to the podcast series Designing a Community of Care, in which Gijsbert van Herk (Humanitas healthcare and welfare organization), Hetty Linden (Utrecht Municipality), Milja Kruijt (Zelfregie Huis Delfshaven) and Ronald van Dijk (housing corporation Rochdale) are interviewed.
With the Open Call Dementia in the Public Space, the Fund called for participation in a research project aimed at improving the accessibility and usability of public spaces for people with dementia. Eight designers were selected and for three months they worked with people living with dementia and their carers. The research by design was carried out on location in the Rotterdam districts of Ommoord and Lombardijen. The project was a joint initiative of the Rotterdam Municipality and the Creative Industries Fund NL. The following eight designers were selected in April 2017 for a collaborative project:
- Marc Andrews, social designer
- Arzu Ayikgezmez, architect
- Gerjanne van Gink, product designer
- Anja Guinée, landscape architect
- Sanne Janssen, landscape architect
- Marlou de Jong, participatory designer
- Lotte van Laatum, product designer
- Anne van Abkoude, interior designer
Through the Open Call The New Hospital, the Fund asked designers to develop new concepts for temporary housing for people with a lower requirement for care. Identifying the target group and making an inventory of their specific healthcare needs were part of the assignment. Five collaboration projects between designers and healthcare institutions and/or organizations were supported. The following projects were selected in July 2015:
- At Home in the District, Remake, buro voor architectuur
- The Leiden Hospital, GAAGA
- The Home and Hospital of Well-being, laura alvarez architecture & mauroparravicini b.v.
- Carebnb, De Jong Gortemaker Algra & Twynstra Gudde
- The New Hospital, Bureau B+B
View the publication Het Nieuwe Bartholomeus Gasthuis here (in Dutch only).
The Open Call: Self-organization in Healthcare focused on the changed situation in healthcare due to changes in healthcare budget distribution. The Fund called for the generation of interdisciplinary solutions to the changes in healthcare organization and healthcare accommodation, with attention on changes in commissioning and the consequences thereof for designers being central. The following projects were selected in November 2013:
- Family Estate, Family Court, Family House, Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten
- Work for People with Disabilities, FORESTI/Grolleman-Wilting
- Bridging the Gap between the Shades of Grey, Bureau Ritsema
- Living without a Care/Healthcare, Jefvanderputte architectuur
- Anthroposophy as a Catalyst for change in Healthcare Organization and Accommodation, Drost + van Veen architecten
Hedy d’Ancona Prize
From 2010 to 2016, the Fund organized the Hedy d’Ancona Prize for exemplary healthcare buildings. With the prize, the Creative Industries Fund NL brought attention to the possibilities of significantly improving the environment of people who receive and provide healthcare. The prize was the prelude to the healthcare programme implemented by the Fund from 2013 onwards.
Image above: Maria Koijck, This is the waste of one operation, my operation! Photo: Eva Glasbeek
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