Digitising planning | Jack Ricketts, Principal Planning Officer, Southwark Council, and Miranda Sharp, National Digital Twin Programme at the Centre for Digital Built Britain. Part 1 of 2.

We must stop and ask ourselves, if not now, when?.

Unfortunately, this in turn means that the toilets are located on the façade, blocking daylight and views out, and thereby interfering with design for wellness principles..The second option, traditionally adopted in many hospital wards, locates the toilets adjacent to the corridors and places the patient area closer to the façade.

Although this partially supports design for wellness principles with patients benefitting from the connection to the outdoors, the layout is detrimental to the staff-patient connection and operational efficiency..The third option, preferred by Bryden Wood, arranges the toilets in a nested position between wards.An excellent example of healthy architecture, this option fully supports design for wellbeing with beds open to both the façade and corridors.

In this situation, patient wellbeing is prioritised on every level, as the nested toilet positioning provides a connection to both the outdoor environment and hospital staff, improving both wellbeing and hospital management.. As shown in the following diagrams, daylight levels are better in the outboard and our preferred nested solution, and the nested option has an improved uniformity ratio.An adequately designed ward would also facilitate a variety of active views out, both to the outdoors and circulation areas, creating a connection to nature in line with biophilic design principles, as well as a better thermal experience.. Further ideas to improve visual comfort in hospital wards are: the adoption of circadian lighting, a better user experience of artificial lighting control and the use of further biophilic design techniques (colour palettes, patterns and vegetation)..

Figure 2: Daylight availability (SDA).

From left to right: inboard design, outboard design, nested design..Embodied carbon in sustainable building design.

On one hand, a Passivhaus building will need triple glazing, additional insulation and airtight membranes.The heat pump may contain refrigerants with high global warming potential and the MVHR unit will require insulated ductwork.

Much of this may be made out of materials with high embodied carbon such as aluminium or blown plastics.This additional material volume becomes additional embodied carbon.. On the other hand, a Passivhaus design tends to be a more compact shape, thus less materials used.