167: Space Plus People Equals Place: 5 Common Practice Design Mistakes to Avoid. With Jerry Kennard

I like the idea of having just the building the physical thing and having the spare rooms you don't even use because to me that sounds like the lunchroom with the ping pong table in it.

That's exactly what I was thinking, a little

running track around the back.

Actually, that leads into the next one that we see, and I'm very passionate about this here, as you know, because we do create world places, that's what we call it, you know, because we talk about anyone can give you a space, whether that's, you know, walls, doors, ceilings, everyone talks about a space.

But for us, when you design it around the people, it becomes a world place.

So space plus people equals place, that's a simple equation we go by where... you know, very simple minded and we try to like to keep it simple, but probably a large part of that that we see missing in a lot of clinics and hospitals is areas for the staff.

So it's a hard one because you go, well, I'm not getting revenue on that space.

But it's potentially you could be losing revenue if you don't give them space, but it's not tangible.

So how do you equate that, if that makes sense? But if they have nowhere to rejuvenate, you know, bit of R&R, breakaway, like these clinics are going flat out.

You can vouch for this.

You work in one and a busy hospital at that.

There's no rest, but if you do get a bit of rest, you want to make sure that you can actually down tools and kick the shoes off for a bit.

And it doesn't need to be huge, but one thing we've found works really well because people are obviously concerned about not using up too much space that could be a consult room or could be treatment or could be x-ray, is to... double, make it double, keep it a flexible space for training, because that's often forgotten as well.

Oh, we've got nowhere to actually just put something up on a screen and get all the team together.

So that sometimes is good because it dictates, okay, well, if we've got 20 people in here at a time, just theaterette style, like I'm not talking tables, then what would that be? Okay, that's actually ends up a good size.

for a breakout area because then you've got, and if you've got flexible furniture, then you can sort of move stuff around and keep it as a very flexible space.

So that's probably another big one that we see is if they've got any facilities, it's, it could be even under the stairs in a Harry Potter room, you know, it's whatever's left.

I remember one of my earlier jobs in the UK.

In the UK, obviously, the challenge is space, right? And there's all these little shoebox practices and try to sit down and have lunch.

And I remember the only spot you could actually sit your ass down was on the washing machine.

in the laundry it was so depressing it was so dark and it does affect you you do 100% you do not get to unwind you just need a bit of space and fresh air and lacking that the days suck

and if possible natural light because that's another massive thing as well places and look it's It's one of those things that you're not always gonna get that building that has natural light available, but it's what you do with the light that you got to work with.

And then we find, cause often the bigger hospitals are in like an industrial or a, you know, a repurposed industrial sort of building.

There's a lot you can do with filling in garage roller doors with lots of glass and even skylights.

And, and then it's how do you get that through the practice? Because again, it's not a tangible thing, but it is science backed, the difference it makes.