OMA predicts the post-COVID 'hospital of the future' at the venice biennale

commenting on the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, OMA and reinier de graaf propose a 2020 hospital of the future at the venice architecture biennale 2021. until last year, this century had promised an era of good health. a steady rise in life expectancy together with improvements in sanitation, medicine, and nutrition had led to an optimistic view of the future. the design team notes: ‘infectious diseases were done away with, and some believed that we no longer needed to prepare for epidemics at all.’ at once, at the closing of 2019, this reality changed. as the coronavirus ravaged the world, those who were most vulnerable — kept healthy through medical achievements — were victimized. the team continues: ‘the hospital as we know it is dead.’

images © DSL studio (unless otherwise stated)

as part of its 2021 venice biennale exhibition, OMA and architect reinier de graaf envision the ‘hospital of the future.’ now, the hospital succumbs under tight budgets, inflated briefs, shortage of medicine supplies, personnel, and ultimately space. proposing a future where the hospital can be saved by technology or architecture, the team predicts that ‘the hospital of the future will be in constant flux, like a theater, transforming its space to the event.’ the architects elaborate: ‘if organs can be 3D printed, could the hospital be 3D printed? using its waste as resource, could it rebuild itself perpetually?’

the exhibition concludes: ‘the hospital of the future is a place you will never go. using its data, the hospital of the future will act remotely, treat each patient individually, monitoring one’s health and operating where needed. the hospital of the future will give way to the machine, liberating its staff from routine tasks, and leaving precision in the hands of accurate devices. if it became automatic, could the hospital of the future be more human?‘

hidden behind a wall of rolling fabric partitions, the OMA- and reinier de graaf-designed venice biennale pavilion is organized as an array of hospital beds facing a huge, centralized screen. projected on this screen is a film produced by the two studios and initiated by OMA in 2019 as part of a research project about the future of healthcare. reinier de graaf comments on the process of developing the exhibition: ‘when we were invited to participate in this edition of the venice biennale in the summer of 2019, few could have imagined the role the hospital would come to play in how we will live together. meanwhile, the institution has proven key to reconquering a way of life we once took for granted. the time has come to bring the hospital to the forefront of the architectural debate.’

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