Evidence-based design of emergency departments
ETH Zürich / Northumbria University / University of Cambridge
The challenge
Emergency Departments are critical entry points for hospital care, where clinical teams must coordinate rapidly and under sustained pressure. Much of this coordination relies on face to face interaction, the synchronous exchange of verbal and nonverbal cues that underpins effective communication and is associated with higher staff wellbeing and better patient outcomes.
Designing for such interaction is difficult, since the openness that enables it can also increase interruptions and compromise patient privacy. Crucially, while the effects of local features are relatively well understood, the influence of an ED's overall spatial configuration, its patterns of visibility, accessibility and movement, remains underexamined.
The approach
This interdisciplinary project integrates architecture, cognitive science and healthcare research to examine how the spatial layout of EDs shapes interaction among healthcare workers. Spatial analysis of existing departments is combined with empirical observation using wearable proximity sensors, shadowing and video based methods to link interaction patterns to communication, collaboration and quality of care.
These findings inform digital design tools that predict how a given configuration supports interaction while managing interruptions and privacy, applied through co-design of the new University Hospital Zurich ED, opening in 2028.
Why it matters
By translating evidence on interaction into design tools, the project advances evidence based, human centric ED design that supports both patient safety and staff wellbeing. Its findings also generalise to other settings in which spatial configuration shapes how people communicate and collaborate.
Principal Investigators
Full Professor of Cognitive Science at ETH Zürich and honorary senior research fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. His research spans wayfinding in built environments, spatial cognition and usability for architectural design, and human computer interaction.
Professor of Architecture at Northumbria University and a world leading authority on the overlap between architecture and spatial cognition. A licensed architect and author of more than 200 publications, she is an expert in space syntax analysis, pedestrian movement, and wayfinding.
Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, where she directs the Cambridge Cognitive Architecture group. Her work integrates architecture, cognitive science, and neuroscience to study how spatial configuration shapes cognition, stress, and team performance, with a current focus on healthcare and other high stress environments.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Cognitive Science group at ETH Zürich. His research models and simulates social phenomena, bridging pedestrian dynamics, high performance computing, machine learning, and cognitive science to build data driven models of human behaviour and decision making.
Postdoctoral researcher in the Cognitive Science department at ETH Zürich, studying how spatial configuration influences communication, collaboration, and stress among healthcare workers in hospital emergency departments. Her work translates research on user behaviour, human computer interaction, and spatial planning into practical spatial UX strategies.
Associate Researcher at the Cambridge Cognitive Architecture lab, working across cognitive neuroscience, human computer interaction, and architecture. He combines portable neuroimaging and body based sensing, including mobile EEG, eye tracking, and motion sensors, with AI methods to study how built and natural environments shape perception, attention, and behaviour.
Research Fellow in Architecture at Northumbria University. His research combines computational spatial analysis and space syntax with full scale prototyping to examine how emergency department layout shapes staff movement, visual attention, and interprofessional communication.
An open architectural competition on the emergency department of the future. Brief, site and entry details will be published here.
Project enquiries
Chair of Cognitive Science ETH Zürich