The unusual design of the Observation Ward of the Philadelphia Contagious Disease Hospital balanced the competing demands of airborne and contact prevention. The small cubiclesRead More
Author: Jeanne Kisacky
After taking a long break from regular blog posts to deal with life issues, over the next weeks I will be posting examples of isolationRead More
The Babies’ Hospital in Philadelphia, designed by Carl A. Ziegler, was a small specialized hospital that maximized vertical circulation as a means of facilitating theRead More
This plan for an ideal Emergency Hospital published by architect George F. Hammond in 1891, provides an interesting catalog of new and old requirements forRead More
While the majority of hospitals built in the U.S. between the 1860s and 1880s followed (at least to some degree) the pavilion-plan model of separateRead More
Even though hospitals remained low-rise structures well into the twentieth century, given the vulnerable condition of the bedridden patients a fire in a hospitalRead More
While providing open space on an urban site was difficult and expensive, some hospital designers did manage to leave unbuilt space on their sites, usuallyRead More
Hospital building committees that could not afford waterfront sites or sites adjacent to parks; often took the risky chance of relying on existing adjacent low-riseRead More
In the 1910s, the governors of the New York Hospital spent a fortune to acquire a complete city block in the upper West Side betweenRead More
Well into the twentieth century, most American hospital designers and builders believed that open space around hospital buildings was a necessity because it allowed directRead More