ARCH24 will bring together research, design, healthcare and real estate professionals across disciplines to discuss the main conference theme ‘Effects of Design on Health and Wellbeing’.

The title invites an emphasis on evidence and research into the outcomes of our work in and around healthcare, around the world.

• Abstract submission                                      31 October 2023
• Notification of abstract acceptance                01 December 2023
• Full article                                                    16 February 2024
• Review of full article                                      15 April 2024
• Camera ready papers & posters                      17 May 2024
• Conference                                                   17-19 June 2024

Please note the abstract submission deadline has passed and we can no longer consider submissions. 

The deadline for articles and papers is February 16, 2024. Posters should be ready no later than May 17, 2024. The anonymized articles and papers will be submitted through Easychair. If you are planning to publish your work, the use of templates is mandatory. The use of poster template is optional. The poster format is A0 (841 x 1189 mm). We recommend that scientific articles be approximately 5000 words, and best practice papers be 2000-3000 words. To submit, log in to Easychair, go to your submission, and use the “update file” function (on the top right of the page). This will ensure that we always have the latest version of your paper. You can update your paper until the deadline.

The scientific articles will be published in Studies in Health and Information Technology book (HTI) series on IOS Press, ISSN 1879-8365.

Best practice short papers will be published in Aalto University publication series.

The link for submissions can be accessed HERE

The scientific article template (PDF) can be accessed HERE, MS Word and LaTeX templates on the website LINK

The best practice short paper template can be accessed HERE

The poster template can be accessed HERE

The three topic streams are

Stream 1:
EFFECTS OF DESIGN ON SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL WELLBEING

This stream focuses on wellbeing as spaces can be argued to affect wellbeing more directly than health. With this stream we wish to bring focus to cultural, social and other non-material parameters. We specifically invite submissions that reflect on this problem on different levels of scales (micro, macro and urban).

• What social wellbeing aspect(s) does your work address?
• What emotional wellbeing aspect(s) does your work address?
• How do you measure these – How do you design for these?
• How can design support equity, diversity and inclusion?
• How can design take into account emotional and social vulnerability?
• How does design account for immigrants, refugees, people experiencing homelessness, substance use, psychosis etc.?
• What is the role of Art in your work?
• How would these issues manifest in a room / a facility / a campus / landscape?

Stream 2:
EFFECTS OF DESIGN IN TRANSFORMATION OF CARE DELIVERY AND CULTURE

With this stream we wish to promote new ways of doing – and being – in care. While healthcare is a notoriously ‘slow-moving ship’ that doesn’t make quick turns, upon historical reflection changes are in fact endemic and at times radical. In this stream we invite submissions that analytically move us to a futures focus, to new best practices and objectives.

• What drives transformations in care? What enables transformations of care?
• What changes in delivery of care have you been part of?
• Is design the cart or the horse? Or something else?
• How has COVID changed what and how we design?
• How does de-hospitalization show in your work / your country?
• What about digitalization? How do we design for it and with it?
• How do changes in paradigms change our designs? (e.g. ‘normalizing’ dementia)

Stream 3:
DESIGN AS A TOOL FOR THERAPY- ENVIRONMENTS THAT CURE, SUPPORT AND REHABILITATE

The practice of social prescribing has brought light to the power of non-clinical therapies. In the era of scarcity of resources this theme invites us to consider and research the effects of environments that by themselves support, cure and rehabilitate our health. These environments can be natural or built, and exist within or outside the context of healthcare facilities.

• What type of built environments support health, increase health, and restore our vitality?
• Why would we need to leave our everyday environments to experience this?
• What does this tell us?
• Have you experienced Forest bathing? Visited a dementia farm? Prescribed time in nature?
• How did you feel at your school / university / first workplace / first own home?
• Do spiritual spaces have a role in healthcare as well?
• Can cities make us healthy? How?

Additionally, the organizers encourage submissions under all themes that are informed by cross-cutting global issues of

• health equity,
• LMICs, and
• awareness, sensitivity and responses to climate change and its effects to health and the built environment

Submissions that fall outside the stated conference themes are respectfully declined.

The scientific committee for ARCH24:

Chairperson:

Dr. Ira Verma, Senior Scientist, SOTERA Research Group, Aalto University

Members:

Dr. Markus Ahola, Chief specialist, Customer experience,  LAB University of Applied Sciences

Dr. Jonas Andersson, Associate Professor, Malmö University, Sweden

Laura Arpiainen, Professor of Health and Wellbeing Architecture, Aalto University

Dr. Keng-Hua Chong,  Associate Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design, SUTD, Singapore

Jonathan Erskine, Executive Director, European Health Property Network, UK

Dr. Toini Harra, Principal Lecturer, Metropolia University of Applied Science, Finland

Karin Høyland , Senior researcher, SINTEF Community, Norway

Dr. Outi Jolanki, Research Director, Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care, Tampere University

Dr. Alisa Korolova, Researcher, Riga Technical University, Latvia

Dr. Matti Kuittinen, Professor of Sustainable Construction, Aalto University

Dr. Liisa Lehtonen, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, University of Turku, Finland

Dr. Göran Lindahl, Director, Center for Healthcare Architecture, Chalmers University, Sweden

Dr. Elisa Lähde, Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture, Aalto University 

Dr. Christine Mady, Senior university lecturer, Aalto University

Dr. Gesine Marquardt, Professor, TU Dresden 

Dr. Katja Maununaho, Co-chair, ASUTUT, Tampere University 

Dr. Elke Miedema, Dosent, Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands

Dr. Fernando Nieto Fernandez, Professor Tampere University 

Dr. Clarine Van Oel,  Associate Professor, TU Delft, Netherlands

Dr. Ann Petermans, Assistant Professor, University of Hasselt, Belgium

Dr. Antti Pirinen, Senior University Lecturer in Spatial and Service Design, Aalto University

Dr. Kirsten Marie Raahauge, Professor MSO, Det Kongelige Akademi, Denmark

Dr. Magnus Rönn, Vice President of NAF / NAAR, Chalmers University, Sweden

Dr. Pirjo Sanaksenaho, Professor of Public Buildings, Aalto University

Dr. Freja Ståhlberg-Aalto, JKMM Architects, Finland

Dr. Sandra Treija, Professor of Architecture, Riga Technical University, Latvia

Dr. Helle Wijk, Professor, Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenburg University, Sweden