Sarita Chand, a Principal of BVN Architecture and one of the country’s foremost health centre designers, says Ulrich’s research validated what many architects have been intuitively designing. But she agreed with Carthey that the Ulrich patient-focused model did not adequately address staff working conditions.

The Australian Building Code has always required natural light in overnight patients’ rooms but there’s no such code for staff, she says. “We have staff sitting for 20 years of their life in offices without windows. Staff work areas and offices are required to have access to natural light in Europe.”

That meant hospitals needed to be designed with a thin architectural footprint, with courtyards funneling natural light into offices and treatment and diagnostic areas – not the fat footprints seen in 1970s-era hospitals such as the old Prince of Wales at Randwick and Royal North Shore. This type of building would also address sustainable design issues for hospitals, which are huge consumers of energy.

“Hospital buildings are the most expensive buildings, the most complex buildings…they are buildings where humans are at their most vulnerable and technology is at its highest,” Chand says. She knows the pros and cons of the two camps – those comforted by visible technology; those wanting resort style “hospitals in disguise” – but she is in no doubt that technology is crucial in managing a health system dealing with chronic staff shortages.

“Clever use of technology can improve clinical processes, it can organise better and safe patient flow, and avoid duplication,” she says.

To her mind, hospitals have lost their status as valuable landmarks; the importance that comes with places of birth and death. “My crusade is to get better design into hospitals, and for them to regain their status as being valued elements in the community.”