Hospitals never close. They have to keep running day to day and through crises like patient surges, often without pausing to rebuild. Future Flexing started from a simple, practical question: which design strategies make healthcare spaces more adaptable, and which ones are realistic to build?

To find out, we started with those who encounter hospitals’ limits firsthand. Over the course of a month, 45 nurses working across a wide range of units in three hospitals shared their observations about barriers and opportunities for flexibility by sending texts and photos from their phones as situations arose. After synthesis by the research team, their observations became 22 design strategies, ranging from multipurpose rooms and modular furniture to convertible patient units and adaptable public spaces.

Next, a panel of 17 healthcare design stakeholders, including architects, interior designers, project managers, and clinicians, discussed each strategy, reflecting on its real-world value and the challenges of putting it into practice. They then rated the feasibility of every strategy against seven parameters, from cost and regulatory compliance to patient and staff safety.

One outcome of this work is an evidence-informed, feasibility-ranked catalogue of strategies, designed to grow over time. You can explore it on the Dashboard.