Insights & Solutions

Peditto, K., Shepley, M., Sachs, N., Mendle, J., & Burrow, A. (2020). Inadequacy and impact of facility design for adolescents and young adults with cancer. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 69, in press.

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer often find they must seek treatment in pediatric facilities designed for much younger patients. Peditto and colleagues developed a questionnaire asking AYA cancer survivors to assess the built environment in terms of both importance and effectiveness. The results showed significant differences between what participants rated as important in cancer facilities– and what was rated as effective. The authors provide recommendations for facilitating desired social support in the AYA oncology environment, especially in the in-between-spaces that blur public and private use. They describe the importance of having choice and control as it relates to privacy, and having spaces that allow for informal social connection when AYA patients want it, with the option of private spaces (i.e. private patient rooms) when they don’t.

In this podcast, Joshua talks about Work Well---a new project, and new technology coming out of Leo A. Daly and their industry partners, to help fight COVID-19. Joshua shares, “Work Well started out as a 2 x 4 foot stick-built wood approach to scanning people as they come onboard. People pass through an entry door and the exit door, and there is a green and red light. If you get a green light, you can continue walking through and if you get a red light, you are going to stop. The light system is tied to a temperature scanning system.” Learn more about the genesis of Work Well, its privacy implications and how the healthcare industry is getting involved.

During the first months of the pandemic, what other facilities, aside from hospitals, were used as surge spaces? Joshua begins, “The US Army of Corps Engineers designated 17 alternate care facilities for surge capacity, and one of those was the Javits Center in New York City. If and when they are demolished, we are going to have a lot of extra product; $700 million dollars worth, and some of that is going to end up in the bin and that is a massive amount of waste.” Get an insider’s perspective into what else was going on behind the scenes during the first several months of the pandemic, and what new innovations are coming out of Leo A Daly’s firm.

Learn about the origins and expanding use of telemedicine for virtual care; the role of the built environment in facilitating care via telemedicine; and how evidence was used to support and develop language for guidance (requirements and recommendations). 

In this podcast, Mary-Jean describes her firm’s work with Memorial Sloan Kettering. “Memorial Sloan Kettering is one of the oldest and largest cancer centers in the world,” Mary-Jean begins. “When we started working with them, the mandate was to take an institution that was very much focused on research and make it a leader in patient centered care.”

Today, women lead the majority of Perkins-Eastman offices and studios. However, it wasn’t always that way. When Mary-Jean Eastman entered architecture school in 1966, fewer than 10 percent of her classmates were women. What was that time like for Mary-Jean and how have women in architecture evolved to the more prominent leadership role they enjoy today at the firm and beyond?

A unique solution that retrofits existing panic device trim to create a ligature resistant door opening. Ideal for adapting original panic device components with non-compliant trim, the LR-EX Series upgrades panic device openings to meet safety standards without affecting the rating of existing trim.