IFHE President gives personal perspective

But also visited IHEEM’s Portsmouth offices, and viewed medical facilities at the city’s acute hospital. The Professor also gave a fascinating insight into the Japanese healthcare system and Japanese hospital design at an evening meeting of IHEEM’s London branch. HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports.

Elected as the new IFHE President for the customary two-year term last November, during the 2011 IFHE Annual Congress, Professor Yasushi Nagasawa Dr. Eng. Dip. HFP, JIA, graduated in architecture at the University of Tokyo in 1968, subsequently worked at the National Institute of Hospital Administration, (NIHA), Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan, and, in 1978, was awarded a postgraduate diploma in health facility planning (as a British Council Scholar) at the Medical Architecture Research Unit (MARU) of what is now London’s South Bank University; at the time MARU was North London-based. A consultant for the World Health Organisation for many years, the qualified architect has designed a variety of buildings, but has a special interest in healthcare. Awarded a Doctorate of Engineering (Ph.D) from the University of Tokyo in 1987, he became associate professor at the University’s Department of Architecture in 1989, was awarded the Japan Institute of Healthcare Architecture Award in 1994, and gained full professorship at the University the same year, working within its Graduate School of Engineering until 2007. That year he moved to the Kogakuin University in Shinjuku in Tokyo, where he became Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and, in April this year, became the University’s first ever Dean of the School of Architecture after he established the department in its own right; previously architectural students had undertaken their studies within the Engineering Faculty.

London visits