Diagnosis Simon Ryder
"Four elegant probes, their smooth, shiny forms reminiscent of medical instruments, are sited one outside each of the main entrances to the new hospital. They reach into the sky, sensing the world around, taking the pulse of Gloucestershire: the up-to-the-minute measurements they display ~ one air temperature, one pressure, another humidity and the fourth air flow (wind speed and direction) ~ the basis for a diagnosis."
temperature ~ warmth
pressure ~ pulse
wind ~ breath
humidity ~ moisture
These four weather masts, each topped by a single word – warmth, pulse, breath, moisture – link inside (the body) with outside (the environment). A visible expression of the hospital’s role. A wider view of health. A public tool for diagnosis. A fifth, virtual mast – the web mast – bringing all the weather information together, broadcasting it to anyone in Gloucestershire with access to the internet, also to every bedhead internet terminal in the new hospital.
The beacons are not only diagnostics (displaying their precise readings via ground-level LED displays), but also wayfinders, helping visitors to orientate around the hospital site. Differently coloured bands of pulsating neon make each beacon highly distinctive, the coloured light responding to that beacons weather data while also making it highly visible, day and night.
The design of the masts
The masts are intended to blend with the modern style and materials used in the new building, as well as with the function of the hospital: a medical instrument on an architectural scale. They will be made out of steel, with a hollow glass tube on top within which will be a word (warmth, pulse, breath and moisture), one per mast. This top element will be highly visible and reflective from some angles, but then in other lighting conditions it will become almost invisible, dissolving into the atmosphere that the mast is measuring.
At ground level, an LED display will give an accurate reading, updated each minute, of that beacons weather data: the warmth mast will give a reading of temperature (ºC and ºF), the pulse mast pressure in millibars, the breath mast air flow in mph and points of the compass, and the moisture mast relative humidity in percent. After each reading a word will follow, again relating the date to the body: rising, stable, falling.
High up on each mast there is a band of pulsating coloured neon, the colour and form of which reflecting the element of the weather each mast is representing. The warmth mast will have orange/red neon, in a vertical scale, responding to the temperature; the breath mast will have a horizontal circle of purple neon, divided into segments to show which direction the wind is coming from; the pulse mast will have concentric circles of green neon, taking it inspiration from the isobars on weather maps (the closer together they are, the greater the change in pressure); the moisture mast will have a blue 'bowl' of neon, filling up as the humidity rises.
East mast's neon will gently pulse (give a clear visual message for wayfinding), and as the pulse of light fades away part of the neon will remain on in response to the weather (the more left on the greater, for example, the temperature): pulse, fade, reading revealed, pulse, fade.....
The colour and form of the neon is also open to being represented as simple graphics, which could be used on letterheads or other hospital stationary or wayfinding, to help guide visitors to the right entrance on their first visit to the new Gloucestershire Royal.
How it works
Weather: a central, solar-powered weather station will be situated on the roof of the hospital. This will measure four aspects of the weather: temperature, pressure, humidity and wind (speed/direction). Outside each of the main entrances to the hospital there will be a 'weather mast', each one responding to a different aspect of the weather. Information from the central weather station will be transmitted via radio (operating at 2.4GHz, a regulated public frequency) to the beacons, which will display the current weather reading: one beacon will display termperature, one pressure....and so on. This weather information will be updated every minute, 24-hours a day.
There will also be a fifth, virtual beacon. The central weather station will transmit the weather data to the internet, via a PC on the hospital’s computer network. A page on the Leading the Way website will display this information, again automatically updated every minute of the day. It will also display historical data, such as the change in pressure over the previous month. This will make the beacons and the information that they display not only available to anyone with an internet connection within the county of Gloucestershire, but also to individual beds in the new hospital which through the Patient Power scheme will all have bedhead internet access. It will also be open to being used as a valuable resource for local schools.
Light: the beacons are also required to aim wayfinding around the site. They are therefore tall (and in proportion to the new building), highly distinctive in structure (that echoes materials shapes found in the new architecture and within the hospital), and will have a ring of neon around the top. The colours of the neon have been chosen to be distinctive from all the other lighting and lit signage around the site, rather than to compete with it. The beacons are intended to be a gently pulsating presence, with subtle colours that are not found anywhere else in the vicinity.
|
|
|
