The best retailers provide remarkable consistency, no matter the location. Healthcare can find inspiration in the way stores use prototyping to make any space serve their mission.
Having worked in different types of architecture, I like to find good ideas across an industry to benefit another. Lately I’ve been thinking about prototyping, which can mean different things in different contexts.
In many cases, it refers to a standardized, repeatable design that maintains quality, reduces costs, and ensures brand and experience consistency. Prototyping in healthcare architecture (especially in large systems) has gained traction over the last few years to meet similar objectives. Why repeat work each time you build repeatable spaces, like inpatient units and outpatient clinics, when you can repurpose an established concept?
While prototyping works well in new construction (where constraints can be controlled), it’s a different story when you try to apply it to older buildings that have been pieced together over decades—and nothing plays nice. That’s where retail concepts can help us.
Retail is the queen of prototyping. The strongest brands maintain consistency, lower costs, and higher quality anywhere in the world – even in malls built decades ago. Despite footprint constraints, prototypes help them make any space work.
Prior to my deep dive into healthcare architecture, I started my career in retail design, creating store master sets that helped other architects implement prototypes. Working on the master sets helped me understand the keys to successful prototyping—concepts that work in healthcare, too. Here’s how I think about them.
1. The Prototype as a Toolbox
Success with prototypes, especially during renovations, rarely comes from a copy-and-paste approach. Instead, it’s about viewing the prototype as a collection of adaptable tools or “if/then” guidelines. This flexibility makes it possible to adjust for different column grids, operational changes, or unique site constraints while preserving the core principles of the prototype. Retailers improvise like this constantly, though customers rarely notice it. Stores like Gap all feel alike, though the locations of dressing rooms or checkout may vary greatly. Same with Apple stores and the infinite configurations of products lining the walls and on their demonstration tables.
In a patient room prototype, for example, the sink placement might be next to the hallway door to ensure staff wash their hands immediately upon entering or exiting the room. The core principle is hand hygiene, not the exact measurement; if necessary, the sink can shift location as long as the principle is maintained.
2. Think Beyond Individual Rooms
Many prototypes focus on how rooms function independently, but it’s important to consider how these spaces relate to one another. For one retail client I worked with, individual room design was important, but equally critical was the flow of customers through those spaces. The customer’s journey—from a dramatic foyer through interconnected rooms to the registers at the back—was carefully curated, encouraging discovery and enhancing the shopping experience. This approach worked in any shape of space because the relationships between areas were the focus.
The same idea applies to healthcare. For instance, how a nurse station relates to the elevator bank on an inpatient unit can create a consistent visitor experience in any hospital within a system, even if the layouts differ.
3. The Prototype as an Evolving Idea
Prototypes aren’t static. In retail, master sets are updated every year, with significant changes every five years or so, to keep up with lessons learned, code changes, new suppliers, or simply to refine details.
Healthcare spaces need the same adaptability. Advances in technology, changes in patient needs, or process improvements can all prompt tweaks to the prototype, keeping it aligned with best practices. These updates are not total overhauls, but incremental, thoughtful improvements that maintain the integrity of the original concept.
Designing prototypes with flexibility and adaptability makes them more successful. Maintaining a repeatable standard helps lower cost, ensures brand continuity, and provides a better patient experience in any location within the system. But most important, it can help lighten the load on clinicians and hospital leadership who can focus on areas that truly need custom attention.
