Cities of health, not machines for treatment: Hospital design through an urban lens

The idea of hospitals as machines for treatment still affects the way they are procured and designed, to the detriment of qualitative considerations that had been intrinsic to the evolution of hospitals since antiquity when they were first cast as cities of health. A return to the urban model is the inspiration behind a number of contemporary hospitals, where it not only creates a sense of place but provides a structure for meaningful user participation; our best hope of designing people rather than machine-centric buildings that are an appropriate, enduring response to function and context.