Every year, the design magazine eVolo holds a competition for the most innovative skyscraper concepts.
One of the award-winning designs this year is Trans-Pital, a hospital that physically adapts to every patient.
It would streamline the entire process of ER care and thus save more lives, write Chinese designers Chen Linag, Jia Tongyu, Sun Bo, Wang Qun, Zhang Kai, and Choi Minhye in their entry, which won honorable mention.
The building design looks nothing like a traditional hospital. Its "walls" look like Legos that can move around like giant elevators.
When patients arrive, the artificially intelligent building would quickly diagnose them. An automated conveyor belt would then carry them to the appropriate wards. Trans-Pital would store data from residents within a 0.6-mile radius so it would instantly have all of their medical information.
Like all of eVolo's winners, Trans-Pital is more of a fantastical concept than a realistic plan. The skyscraper-hospital most likely was never intended to be built, but the vision behind it explores how data and artificial intelligence (and some pretty impressive building mechanics) could advance healthcare.
The design also offers a glimpse at how physical spaces could adapt to patients' needs. And in those crucial life-or-death moments when patients can't communicate their medical histories, they wouldn't need to, because the building would already have the information before they arrive.
And who knows, perhaps in some utopian future, we will have a hospital powered by bots. With the rate that AI development is accelerating, the idea doesn't seem that wild.
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