Project: SimCath
Client: Imperial College
How do surgeons prepare for an operation, when they know that the smallest mistake could be the line between life and death? That was the question Cellule faced when developing SimCath, a cardiology suite for simulation training.
Year
2017
Sector
Medical/Product design
Discipline
Simulation
Industrial design
UX research
Set design
Manufacture
Ethos
Portable
Lightweight
Affordable
Collaborative
Minimal
“SimCath can be
transported easily
between hospitals”
By training in a simulation environment, future surgeons have an opportunity to rehearse for complex surgery, performing common interactions between patients and clinicians in a low risk environment.
SimCath is affordable and portable. The unit can be transported from hospital to hospital, allowing teams to quickly set up a full scale operation in numerous different contexts and configurations.
“Developing SimCath was reminiscent of building a theater set”
Developing SimCath was reminiscent of building a theatre set, a stage…We worked with patients and clinicians to develop an
immersive simulation suite ‘close enough to reality’ so that their behaviours within the simulation environment were as close to that of a live operating theatre as possible.
The design was underpinned by thorough field research in the Cath Labs at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital attending real operations.
SimCath was tested by the a cardiology team at Chelsea and Westminster.
Design Engineer and Production manager: Attila Schwarczkopf
Design assistant: Gareth Ladley
Photography: Swann Lucas
Special thanks to Molo, Plastinform and Karoly Macovics.
Inclusive Design
Interactive Architecture
Computational Cardiology
In our design practice, we aim to design for the uniqueness and diversity of each individual, keeping in mind everybody’s different abilities, needs and desires. We keep our design processes close to the end users and involve them in the decisions we make. We try to understand people’s differences to create better products, services and environments for everyone. We believe that learning from diversity enhances our creativity, and improves our work as designers and people.
Inclusive design means that a product, service or environment is designed with the knowledge and expertise of users who are ‘experts’ of their situations and can prioritize needs. A collaborative design process allows to mobilise a wider range of information, ideas and insights to address a broader social challenge and prevents major errors that could occur from a design-engineer centric approach.
Interactive architecture is the art/science of creating spaces and buildings that interact with their visitors. By incorporating sensors, processors and effectors in the core of the architecture,we can create intelligent spaces that acquire the ability to gather information from the physical space, understand it and act in consequence on it. This allows architects to create a real-time, personalised interaction between a space and its visitors – between a smart object and a smart subject. For us designers, they become a vector for interactive art. We aim to create ‘spaces’ that respond to our presence and help us understand complex notions of the physical and natural world that we are constantly interacting with.
Computational cardiology is the use of advanced imaging, genetic screening and devices to understand heart conditions and to treat patients according to their specific pathophysiology. Cardiologists use computational models that analyse great amounts of patient-specific physiological and physical information, to reveal diagnostic information and predict clinical outcomes, which enables personalising treatment for individuals.
Scanning technologies (MRI, CT, Echocardiography) are widely used, non invasive technique to create detailed images of organs and tissue in the body using strong magnetic fields or ultrasound to create 2D or 3D imagery.
Inclusive Design
In our design practice, we aim to design for the uniqueness and diversity of each individual, keeping in mind everybody’s different abilities, needs and desires. We keep our design processes close to the end users and involve them in the decisions we make. We try to understand people’s differences to create better products, services and environments for everyone. We believe that learning from diversity enhances our creativity, and improves our work as designers and people.
Inclusive design means that a product, service or environment is designed with the knowledge and expertise of users who are ‘experts’ of their situations and can prioritize needs. A collaborative design process allows to mobilise a wider range of information, ideas and insights to address a broader social challenge and prevents major errors that could occur from a design-engineer centric approach.
Interactive Architecture
Interactive architecture is the art/science of creating spaces and buildings that interact with their visitors. By incorporating sensors, processors and effectors in the core of the architecture,we can create intelligent spaces that acquire the ability to gather information from the physical space, understand it and act in consequence on it. This allows architects to create a real-time, personalised interaction between a space and its visitors – between a smart object and a smart subject. For us designers, they become a vector for interactive art. We aim to create ‘spaces’ that respond to our presence and help us understand complex notions of the physical and natural world that we are constantly interacting with.
Computational Cardiology
Computational cardiology is the use of advanced imaging, genetic screening and devices to understand heart conditions and to treat patients according to their specific pathophysiology. Cardiologists use computational models that analyse great amounts of patient-specific physiological and physical information, to reveal diagnostic information and predict clinical outcomes, which enables personalising treatment for individuals.
Scanning technologies (MRI, CT, Echocardiography) are widely used, non invasive technique to create detailed images of organs and tissue in the body using strong magnetic fields or ultrasound to create 2D or 3D imagery.
