Introduction:
The architecture of healthcare spaces is highly complex, and this complexity intensifies when these spaces are also intended for educational purposes. This study introduces key criteria for optimizing architectural design and systematic decision-making in addressing the intricate challenges of designing clinical education spaces in medical facilities.
Methods:
In this research, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach was employed to systematically design clinical education spaces. Key design criteria and their corresponding sub-criteria for medical clinical education spaces were identified. Structured surveys and interviews with stakeholders were conducted to perform pairwise comparisons for evaluating the relative importance of the criteria. The results of these pairwise comparisons were synthesized into a super matrix, capturing interdependencies and feedback among the criteria, ultimately calculating the overall weights and rankings of each criterion.
Results:
The Analytic Network Process (ANP), a method within the MCDM framework, revealed that functionality and spatial efficiency emerged as the most critical criterion for the design of healthcare/educational buildings, with a global weight of 32%. This finding underscores the significance of efficient spatial planning and workflow optimization. Patient-centered/student-centered design ranked second with a weight of 27%, highlighting the priority of enhancing the comfort and experience of both patients and students. Safety and compliance to standards ranked third at 18%, followed by sustainability and environmental considerations at 12%.
Conclusion:
This research indicates that the most important criteria for designing healthcare/educational buildings are spatial functionality, patient-/student-centered design, and safety and standards compliance. The findings emphasize the need for balancing these three aspects in the architectural design of healthcare/educational facilities.