Can Architecture Heal Us?

Can Architecture Heal Us?

From Let's Talk Architecture by Danish Architecture Center – DAC

December 25, 2025 · 31 min

About this episode

The episode explores how architecture can promote health and community through the design of Copenhagen's Centre for Health.

Timber instead of tiles, curiosity instead of corridors, and a 15-metre-high atrium designed to make people feel safer, healthier and more connected. Copenhagen's Centre for Health proposes a new typology for public healthcare architecture. In this episode, Michael Booth meets architect Dorte Mandrup, widely regarded as one of Denmark's greatest living architects, to explore how a complex and often contradictory brief — openness and privacy, care and community — was translated into a warm, tactile and quietly radical public building. Together they discuss the centre's boomerang-shaped footprint, full timber construction and soaring atrium, and how architecture can gently nudge behaviour , foster wellbeing and create spaces that feel inclusive without feeling exposed. Guest: Dorte Mandrup, Arkitekt , Dorte Mandrup A/S Host: Michael Booth Let's Talk Architecture is a podcast by Danish Architecture Center. Sound edits by Munck Studios.

People in this episode

Host: Michael Booth

Guest: Dorte Mandrup

Topics covered

  • healthcare architecture
  • public buildings
  • wellbeing
  • design
  • community spaces

Keywords

  • architecture
  • health
  • Copenhagen
  • Dorte Mandrup
  • public healthcare
  • design
  • wellbeing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Dorte Mandrup A/S

Places: Copenhagen, Denmark

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