Prof. Christine Nickl-Weller at the lectern in the Academy of Arts plenary hall in Berlin

The large plenary hall at the Academy of Arts in Berlin filled in one fell swoop when admission to the 6th Health Care of the Future symposium finally began on 11 March. A bomb threat at the Pariser Platz, which fortunately turned out to be a false alarm, had forced visitors and speakers to wait in uncertainty for an hour. With 250 participants from numerous countries, the event – entitled “Liveability of Health; Design & Health, Bridging the Gap – was the best-attended symposium of this series. It has been organised by Prof. Christine Nickl-Weller of the Architecture for Health department at TU Berlin since 2006.

Professor Nickl-Weller opened the symposium and immediately gave the floor to the Vice-President of TU Berlin, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christine Ahrend, who particularly praised the interdisciplinary nature of the symposium and emphasised its importance in the current research landscape. The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health, Annette Widmann-Mauz, assured the audience in her opening speech that political circles were also receptive to the issues of construction in health care.

Like its predecessors, the sixth symposium in the series offered a wide range of talks related to the subject of health and construction. From the urban environment to the hospital proper and specific topics such as “Children in the Hospital and “Communication in Health Care”, the speakers presented an exhaustive picture of the current challenges and future trends in the health care landscape.

On the previous evening, speakers and participants prepared for the symposium at a get-together at Bikini Island in the reopened Bikini Haus.