Building Blocks for Critical Care: Designing ICU Spaces

Building for the Sickest – How Clinicians Shape ICU Design

This two-day course puts clinicians at the heart of ICU design. It combines practical insight, real-world experience, and collaborative problem-solving to help you understand how spaces for the sickest patients are conceived, built, and improved—and how your voice can influence every stage.

Throughout the programme, we’ll explore how design impacts staff well-being and patient experience, and how these perspectives can inform better environments for care.

Why Join Us?

Across both days, you’ll have unparalleled access to experts—architects, clinicians, engineers, and project leaders—combined with plenty of opportunities to ask questions, share ideas, and build practical skills.

Ready to shape the future of critical care? Reserve your place now and start influencing the spaces where the sickest patients are cared for.

What You’ll Learn

Over two interactive days, you’ll gain practical knowledge and skills to influence the design of critical care spaces, including:

• How hospital building projects really work – from RIBA stages to delivery
• Using design as a strategic tool for patient outcomes and staff well-being
• Sustainability and engineering essentials for ICU environments
• Finance fundamentals – understanding budgets and business cases
• Reading and interpreting architectural drawings (1:50, 1:200 plans)
• Conducting post-occupancy evaluations and creating tools for your own unit
• Navigating national programmes like the New Hospital Programme and what they mean for ICU design
• Collaborating effectively with architects, engineers, and project teams
• Bringing the patient voice into design decisions
• Practical strategies to stay involved and influence projects