Organizing Interactions

Oftentimes our healthcare designs focus intensely on efficiency. We are constantly optimizing layouts to meet the desired program, while ensuring that each piece of required equipment finds an intelligent home too. To balance this practical behavior, the PDS team also enjoys integrating a less obvious element when appropriate: organizing social interactions.

In this study, we needed to introduce acoustic paneling to dampen the loud sounds created in a large/open shared space. The challenge was one of cost efficiency and pattern making: how to intelligently introduce a simple acoustic tile. The opportunity that was identified dealt with understanding the nature of each unique activity associated with the nurse's station, the cafeteria and the quiet meeting spaces.

Here we have diagrammed the organization of the (3) types of activity: medical staff (red), patient-active (green) and patient-quiet (blue) in an attempt to better understand where acoustic adjustments might be necessary. To accommodate the auditory volume of conversations, we were able to assume that the panels should be "clumped"  in obvious areas where interaction was more likely. This assumption, combined with a simple grid, allowed us to generate an intelligent pattern that was both expressive of the user, practical and cost efficient. 

PDS is moving into a new studio!

Pomarico Design Studio is excited to announce that we are relocating our headquarters to the charming waterfront, within the City of Newburgh. We have proudly outgrown our space on Main Street, in Beacon. Although our 8-year stay was delightful, we are looking forward to enjoying our new view from the other side of the river. 

At the beginning of February, 2016, the home base of PDS can be found at 19 Front Street in Newburgh, NY with a new phone number too: (845) 561-0448. Our New York City Office will remain the same and you can still reach the team with all of your existing contact info. 

We always welcome visitors. Feel free to stop by to see what we we are working on or just to say hello.

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Rethinking Psychiatric Care

We were recently asked to imagine a new platform for administering treatment to a growing population of psychiatric patients, with a wide range of ages, personal stories and levels of care needed. 

In this study we have focussed our attention on what we call COMMUNITY CARE. We recognized a serious void in the amount of common space allocated to patients within psychiatric treatment centers. 

Our aim here is simple: provide each client with a safe level of freedom to move and converse with the rest of their treatment neighbors.

This project is now moving in its Construction Documenting phase so check back for updated media in a few months!

Following up on the Human Gait

In our last post, we were testing some new techniques and looking closely at ways to make the typical Nursing Unit more efficient. Our first step involved something we are exploring across the board, in many of our current projects: DECONSTRUCTING THE  NURSE STATION.

In other words, we have asked ourselves (and our clients) "Why do nurses sit at desks? Is this still a relevant concept or are we simply replicating past necessity with outdated approaches?".

We have concluded that Nurse Stations are not a necessary element in all Nursing Units, anymore. There are plenty of new/mobile tools that make charting and patient documentation much more efficient, freeing up space and saving cost on traditional millwork expenses.

Now that we identified the opportunity to save space and money, the next challenge is how to intelligently use all this extra space.

In this project our focus has been on the patient first and the visitor second...don't worry the staff are also seeing great improvements in how they utilize space and work within the unit. But in this project we have focused heavily on the amenities that make the visitor's wait and stay more comfortable while they provide the companionship necessary to all patients during recovery. 

Shaping Space, The Human Gait, Technology and Planning for the Future Deconstructing the Nurse Station

PDS was recently faced with an exciting challenge: Convert a 30-year-old nursing unit into an efficient / felxible space, prepared to adapt to the next 30 years of healthcare advancement.  Looking back and looking forward, we find ourselves in a unique place in time.  Behind we see nursing units structured around large bulky stations, crafted to address the needs of the paper chart world.  The present, we find ourselves surrounded by constant advances in the delivery of data.  Data is everywhere.  We access it on our watches, phones, tablets, laptops and occasionally a desk top computer.  The future, we anticipate will further the human mobility of navigating in a world of data; It will be everywhere.  The Cloud will be an ether in which we live, we will be surrounded by data and we believe devices will eventually become integrated into everything we do, who we are, what we are, our spaces, our environments, our clothing, our accessories.  All to facilitate access to our data.

So how do we create a nursing unit that will address the current needs of large mobile computing carts and residual paper as our society transitions to the ether?  How do we create a flexible environment that will embrace the movement to a mobile society that is fluid in its access to data?  How do we understand mobility, stations, visual fields, and layering of space to create flexible environments?

We have begun our study by breaking down the unit through a cohesive study of the human gate and how the users of the space might actually occupy it.  How do we move through space, how do we embrace the fluid needs of mobile access to data? How do we create space where there is none?  We see deconstruction of the past as a solution to creating space for the future.  Removing barriers that are impediments to our being able to embrace mobility and access to data, each other and the patient.  Removing barriers to find space where there was none, to accommodate family members in calming, collective space that supports their needs.

Below you will find our early studies that focus on natural circulation and usage of the residual "negative space" that occurs through deconstruction.  Woven through this space are the path of patients, visitors, nurses and physicians.  Within the deconstruction, we aim to find the solution to the future, mobility and access to data.  Ultimately, we believe this will free us to finally realize the true benefits of technology which will allow nursing to function in a fluid space facilitating patient care and interaction with all involved in the healing process.