Share Your Vision
An open invitation for the Design4Health community to contribute ideas, reflections and aspirations for the future of design in health and care.
The Future Is Now
When the physical conference in Amsterdam could not proceed due to the global pandemic, the organising committee of Design4Health 2020 chose to keep the conversation alive. Rather than letting distance silence the community, the team opened a digital space where researchers, designers, clinicians, students and practitioners could share their perspectives on what the future of health design might look like.
The initiative invited contributors from all backgrounds to reflect on the conference theme, "Designing Future Health," and to articulate their hopes, concerns and creative proposals. Participants were encouraged to think broadly: from re-imagining hospital environments and rethinking patient journeys to envisioning entirely new models of community care.
The result was a rich collection of contributions from across the globe, spanning short reflections, visual concepts and longer position statements. Together, these voices illustrate the diversity and ambition of the design for health community.
How to Contribute
The Design4Health community welcomes ongoing reflections and ideas. Contributions can be shared by contacting the organising committee at [email protected].
Questions That Guided the Conversation
The organising committee posed a series of open questions to spark creative thinking
What Will Health Look Like?
Where will health and care be enacted in the decades ahead? How might living environments, workplaces and public spaces be reconfigured to support wellbeing? What role will technology play in bridging gaps between professional care and daily life?
How Can Research Translate to Practice?
Current trends in personalisation, interdisciplinarity and circular design show promise. How might these approaches move from academic discourse into tangible improvements in care delivery, patient experience and community resilience?
Who Is the Future Designer?
As the boundaries between design and health continue to blur, what skills and competencies will future practitioners need? How can education programmes prepare a new generation of designers who understand both creative practice and clinical complexity?
What Can We Learn from Crisis?
The pandemic demonstrated how quickly design can respond to urgent health challenges. From ventilator prototypes to wayfinding in vaccination centres, the crisis accelerated innovation. How can these lessons inform a more prepared and adaptive design practice?
Emerging Themes from the Community
Across the many contributions received, several recurring themes emerged that reflect the collective priorities of the Design4Health network.
Equity and Inclusion in Health Design
A significant number of contributors emphasised the importance of designing with, rather than for, communities. Participatory methods that centre the voices of patients, carers and underserved populations were seen as essential to creating meaningful change. Several respondents noted that the pandemic had exposed and widened existing health inequalities, making inclusive design more urgent than ever.
The Digital Shift
The rapid adoption of telemedicine, remote monitoring and digital health tools during 2020 prompted many contributors to reflect on the opportunities and risks of digitally mediated care. Discussions touched on questions of accessibility, data privacy and the challenge of maintaining empathetic human connection through screens and interfaces.
Place, Space and Healing Environments
Contributors from architectural and environmental design backgrounds drew attention to the role of physical spaces in supporting health. From biophilic hospital design to rethinking care home layouts, the spatial dimension of health was a consistent thread. The pandemic underscored how important the design of indoor air quality, circulation patterns and outdoor access can be for wellbeing.
Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Many respondents expressed a desire for deeper collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. The Design4Health conference has always championed this, but contributors felt that even more ambitious partnerships between designers, clinicians, data scientists, social workers and policy makers would be needed to address the complexity of future health challenges.
Sustainability and Planetary Health
A growing cohort of voices connected human health to environmental health, advocating for circular design principles in healthcare products and systems. Contributors pointed to the vast quantities of single-use materials consumed in medical settings and asked how design thinking might contribute to more sustainable healthcare supply chains and practices.
Looking Forward
The ideas gathered through Design4Health 2020 continue to resonate within the broader design for health community. Many of the themes raised by contributors have since been taken forward through the published conference proceedings, subsequent research collaborations and the ongoing work of the organising institutions.
The organising committee extends its gratitude to everyone who contributed their time, expertise and imagination. In a year defined by uncertainty, the willingness of the community to share openly and think collectively about the future of health demonstrated the enduring value of the Design4Health network.