"Modern luxury is the ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four." -Justin Welsh

Here's a question for you: Would you rather have the car of your dreams or would you rather live longer? (Maybe you don't care at all about cars and so this is an easy question, but bear with me, I'm sure you get the point.) This is a question that was posed to the audience at Elevate earlier this week and the entire room responded by saying that they would choose the latter. This is perhaps obvious. What good are material possessions if you don't have your health? But it's still an important frame of reference. And it's why Brazil-based developer AG7, who was at the conference, has centered their entire practice around "building wellness." Forget the fancy brands. Their buildings are focused on one thing: to help you live better and longer. This, to me, is a compelling value proposition. Because I think there's an easy argument to be made that there's no greater luxury than our own health and wellness.

Cover photo by Alex Perri on Unsplash

I haven’t spent a lot of time in hospitals. So I may not be the best judge of what I’m about to say. But why do we design hospitals to be so depressing? Why do they have to look so, well, clinical?

I asked this question on Twitter a few days ago and I was recommended to listen to a 99% Invisible podcast called The Blue Yarn. If you haven’t yet heard of this podcast series, I would highly recommend you check it out (in addition The Blue Yarn episode).

What this particular podcast was about was rethinking hospital design in terms of patients, as opposed to staff hierarchy. And the way they illustrated the need for that was through some simple blue yarn.

Using yarn, management physically mapped out the paths of patients as they moved through this particular medical center. And what they found was a tremendous amount of waste. There was a lot of waiting around (in dingy rooms) and a lot of unnecessary moving around.

Instead of putting patients first, the hospital had been designed in terms of staff offices and other criteria. Ultimately, this exercise ended up triggering a complete redesign of the hospital.

After the redesign, there were a lot of grouchy doctors who had lost cushy offices. Some even quit. But the hospital became more efficient, more profitable, and, most importantly, safer for patients. So much so that their insurance expenses dropped by 37%!

"Modern luxury is the ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four." -Justin Welsh

Here's a question for you: Would you rather have the car of your dreams or would you rather live longer? (Maybe you don't care at all about cars and so this is an easy question, but bear with me, I'm sure you get the point.) This is a question that was posed to the audience at Elevate earlier this week and the entire room responded by saying that they would choose the latter. This is perhaps obvious. What good are material possessions if you don't have your health? But it's still an important frame of reference. And it's why Brazil-based developer AG7, who was at the conference, has centered their entire practice around "building wellness." Forget the fancy brands. Their buildings are focused on one thing: to help you live better and longer. This, to me, is a compelling value proposition. Because I think there's an easy argument to be made that there's no greater luxury than our own health and wellness.

Cover photo by Alex Perri on Unsplash

I haven’t spent a lot of time in hospitals. So I may not be the best judge of what I’m about to say. But why do we design hospitals to be so depressing? Why do they have to look so, well, clinical?

I asked this question on Twitter a few days ago and I was recommended to listen to a 99% Invisible podcast called The Blue Yarn. If you haven’t yet heard of this podcast series, I would highly recommend you check it out (in addition The Blue Yarn episode).

What this particular podcast was about was rethinking hospital design in terms of patients, as opposed to staff hierarchy. And the way they illustrated the need for that was through some simple blue yarn.

Using yarn, management physically mapped out the paths of patients as they moved through this particular medical center. And what they found was a tremendous amount of waste. There was a lot of waiting around (in dingy rooms) and a lot of unnecessary moving around.

Instead of putting patients first, the hospital had been designed in terms of staff offices and other criteria. Ultimately, this exercise ended up triggering a complete redesign of the hospital.

After the redesign, there were a lot of grouchy doctors who had lost cushy offices. Some even quit. But the hospital became more efficient, more profitable, and, most importantly, safer for patients. So much so that their insurance expenses dropped by 37%!