Transcript
Carolyn Solley:
From international design practice Hassell, you’re listening to Hassell Talks.
Behind the doors of a previously unloved 1970s Brutalist building in Brisbane, there are now teams of researchers, surgeons, engineers, industrial designers, and other very clever people working on groundbreaking, life-changing biofabrication and medical research. The Herston Biofabrication Institute opened its doors to Queensland and Australia in 2021. Already it has changed the lives of many people, enabled rapid iteration, testing, application, and problem-solving, and it’s a project I’m so delighted to have worked on, with a brief that asked designers to create a place that enabled ideas, collaboration, and agility to respond.
I’m Carolyn Solley. I’m an interior designer at Hassell and I’m joined today by the wonderful Mathilde Desselle. Mathilde is the general manager at Herston Biofab. Her specialty is 3D health technologies, digital health, and design innovation for healthcare. She was a crucial stakeholder and collaborator in the successful outcome of the Institute. Hello Mathilde, so great to talk to you today.
Mathilde Desselle:
Hey Carolyn, nice to speak to you as well. I’m excited.
Carolyn Solley:
Yeah, well, thank you very much. I’d like to start our conversation by acknowledging and respecting the Yuggera and Turball people as the original custodians, designers, and placemakers of the land upon which your Herston Biofabrication is situated, and of course, from where we’re speaking today. We pay our respect to the traditional owners, their elders and knowledge-holders, past, present and emerging. Their knowledge has and will ensure the continuation of cultures and traditional practises.
So, Mathilde, you’ve been in the facility for about a year now and you know that I love visiting to sort of see all of the amazing work that you do. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing the story that you told me about a gentleman with no vocal cords, and how you helped them through the Institute.
Mathilde Desselle:
Yes, so that’s a fairly recent case, where we were contacted by a physiotherapist and she told us about that gentleman who kept being admitted in our respiratory medicine department at the hospital fairly regularly. And the challenge for this individual is that they have a little stoma, so it’s like a little hole in the neck. The gentleman is using that, the hole, to breathe, and the gentleman also has no vocal cord and fairly irregular anatomical contours on the neck. And the challenge that was presenting itself is that in the absence of vocal cords and with the stoma, can’t cough through their mouths. So, you know how all the dust we inhale comes and sit on our lungs, probably a million times in the day, we do cough but they can’t. So, they kept developing those chest infections that kept coming back, and every three, four months, the person was admitted in hospital and had to stay there for a few weeks until the problem went away.
We were contacted to see if we could design a little adapter for the gentleman’s stoma to help him cough. So, they’re little devices that exist when you have difficulties to cough, like a cough assist, if you like, a positive respiratory pressure device, but that fit in your mouth. He can’t cough through his mouth. So, for him, that was a bit useless.
So, I just went down to respiratory medicine to meet the patient. I took a 3D scan of the neck and brought that scan back to our lab at HBI. Our engineers then developed a little adapter, pretty basic, pretty simple, little 3D-printed adapter for the cough-assist device. And after the necessary quality assurance and regulatory steps, we were able to hand the device over to the patient.
So, that was a few months ago now. And since that’s happened, the patient’s been able to cough and that means they haven’t had a single hospital admission for respiratory infection since. And their quality of life has so dramatically improved, that by getting rid of the infection, he was able to get an electronic larynx installed. So, the patient is talking the first time in 30 years.
Carolyn Solley:
That’s amazing. That’s such an interesting story. How long did that process take? Was it a few months, was it?
Mathilde Desselle:
Actually only was a matter of a couple of weeks. The person was scanned when they were hospitalised, and from basically that afternoon, I was able to reconstruct the 3D model of the patient. Then we took a day or two to design something, 3D print it in a material that wasn’t going to react with the skin. And then on another visit, we were able to test the safety of the device with a few therapist and with the doctor and we made some tiny adjustments. That’s the beauty of 3D printing. It supports iteration so beautifully. So, when we need little design changes, it’s fairly easy to then make another device, if you like. And the patient went home and at their next visit to meet their doctor and physiotherapist, we were able to hand him the final device.
Carolyn Solley:
I guess, going back a step, what was your workplace before you had the Institute in the last sort of year or so?
Mathilde Desselle:
I come from the academic world, so I was working in a university. So, that’s been, I guess, the biggest change for me is to be a role as a biomedical engineer, as a designer, to be physically on bed on the hospital campus. So, I guess the difference very much was that tyranny of distance. When you’re even in the same city but you need to start having to hop on a bus or in a car or on your electric scooter to go places, it makes things a little harder and perhaps a little less agile than when we are able to be all physically co-located and we are on the same floor or we are a couple of corridors away.
Carolyn Solley:
Was that one of the key deciding factors of why you situated the Biofabrication Institute on-campus at the Royal Brisbane Hospital?
Mathilde Desselle:
Absolutely was that intention to very much co-locate expertise and support those smooth interactions between engineers, designers, clinicians, industry representatives, academics, and most importantly, patients.
Carolyn Solley:
That’s great. What other sort of activities go on behind the doors of HBI since you’ve opened?
Mathilde Desselle:
Oh, it’s so much. What’s interesting about what we do in the Institute is that we do support, I guess, three big pillars of activity. There is examples like the one we just discussed, that really touch on utilising the 3D technologies to have a direct clinical impact. So, that is directly affecting the delivery of care in the hospital.
We talked about example of a little custom device, what we do hundreds of, it’s what’s called an anatomical model for the purpose of surgical planning. So, if Carolyn, you need to have a surgery done and it’s going to be quite complex, what we do is that we will take your medical images, obtained with the CT scan or the main, and we will use that to very much recreate 3D model of your anatomy, and we likely are going to 3D print that and it’s going to be used to plan your surgery so it goes as smoothly as possible. So, it’s able to be discussed between the engineer and the clinician. The clinician is able to discuss the model with her colleagues, so she might evaluate where she might cut or where she might reconstruct. She might bend the plate beforehand just to maximise the time that is spent in surgery.
The third pillar is very much education and how we can create those new pathways for engineers, for designers, and for clinicians, that very much embrace the integration of 3D technologies.
Carolyn Solley:
Yeah. One of the interesting things I really enjoy when I come and visit you is seeing the clinicians there in their scrubs, seeing the orthopaedic surgeons come from surgery, right into do some of that rapid testing and collaboration with your designers and engineers. Is that sort of the experience of a day in the life of the Institute?
Mathilde Desselle:
Absolutely. All these people are walking in and out and the art is making the space so that it’s plastic enough, work for everyone. Which, how was it for you? Because I guess you had to incorporate what everyone’s priorities were, and we were doing co-design for the space, and you had researchers, you had engineers, you had surgeons. How was it for you to try and make everyone happy?
Carolyn Solley:
Well, I think that was, yeah, that’s such an interesting part of the brief is that we’re actually designing for people and connection and not necessarily machines and 3D printers. We’re actually designing how you want to work in the future. So, that was a really great discussion that we had, I think early on, about the different types of people and how they might use the workplace differently. So, we’re very much kind of cognizant of creating a lot of transparency that people like the clinicians and the surgeons would feel really super-welcome in the space and be able to come and go as they please, but also creating space that was suitable for research and detailed and focused work as well. So, I think that played a real factor in understanding everyone’s kind of desires to collaborate and how design could support collaboration.
Mathilde Desselle:
I think it’s quite interesting. Now, we talked about co-location of expertise and I guess the benefits it can have. During the pandemic, that was massive because we were developing medical devices to support COVID-19 responses and so it was all a bit hectic and we had to move really, really fast, and that ability to do very rapid ID development, rapid prototyping and rapid testing and evaluation of those IDs onsite, I think helped us respond really, really quickly and to really action what iterative design means.
Carolyn Solley:
Mm-hmm.
Mathilde Desselle:
It’s a lot of history in the building. There used to be the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital was in this building. It was the hospital and then it’s been used over the past, I think, 50 years for administrative purposes and then clinical again. We see a lot of surgeons say, “Oh, I did my internship here that many decades ago,” and now it’s undergoing a new transformation with HBI but also with considerations for other floors. How did you actually honour and incorporate the history of the building in what you did for HBI? I know we did terrazzo touches, for example.
Carolyn Solley:
Yeah, look, it’s really interesting because it was designed way back in 1977 and it’s certainly a very architectural building but Brutalist in its nature. We understood from the research that it used to be also a specialist research and laboratory facility. So, it’s had a really varied past and that’s what we thought was really interesting, that we created this opportunity to re-life an otherwise kind of tired and sad building, to almost come full circle to becoming a laboratory again. So, we certainly used those constraints, I guess, in the design challenges to really harness something that was completely different and completely unexpected because we want your consumers and your partners and philanthropists to do exactly what you’ve described, to walk in and say, “Wow, I didn’t expect this to be there.”
So, the Institute is so many things to different stakeholders. I mean, you’ve just mentioned an example of a life-changing kind of outcome from the work that you do, but it’s also a place for public transparency and education and innovation and healing. So, it’s just a really interesting place that we’ve really enjoyed working on and actually hoping that it’s future-proof that it’s flexible for all of the advances in technology that we can never kind of predict. But hopefully, we built a facility with you that responds and changes over time.
Mathilde Desselle:
Yes, patients do love it too.
Carolyn Solley:
We wanted to create a space that patients and consumers felt really comfortable in. I think some of the issues that you’ve described could potentially be quite traumatic for different people, and certainly, we wanted to create a space that made people feel really welcome. So, I think intentionally our design is based around human kind of scale materials. You referenced the terrazzo that was from the original Brutalist building from the ’70s and we wanted to kind of reference that in the palette so that everything feels quite natural, timeless, and not necessarily over-clinical or scary, I guess, to people that are coming from the general public.
Mathilde Desselle:
I think the transparency throughout does play a big role as well because we have a portion of the Institute that is accessible to the public. You know when you go to posh restaurants and you can see what happens in the kitchen? People have work. So, we’ve got some elements of that very much happening where when consumers, visitors, do come to the Institute, they can have a walk around. They can approach a 3D laboratory without getting in, but they can still get a glimpse of what activities are happening in there.
Recently I had one consumer representatives and I just found him in a staff kitchen making himself a cup of tea. I was delighted that they felt comfortable enough to walk through that open door and walk in the kitchen, make themselves a cup of tea, sit down and start engaging with a medical student who happens to be walking through at the same time and is starting to share what they’re working on.
Carolyn Solley:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Can you describe a bit about the inclusive nature and how the design supports that?
Mathilde Desselle:
Typically, hospital waiting rooms are not very welcoming spaces. They’re a bit scary. It’s a bit noisy. Some mismatched chairs. You said earlier, “How about how we try to design a space that was welcoming.” So, we have very much tried to create a space that is inclusive, that is free-flowing. We’ve designed a couple of very beautiful consult rooms, which we have started to use already, to consent patients and very much tried to, I guess, design something that had a flow that would warranty privacy, comfort, and the preservation of dignity for our patient. So, it’s really heartwarming when we see patients who can walk in and feel comfortable enough to they can have a seat, can have a cup of tea, we can then come and have that conversation. It takes bravery on their part to come on board with what we do. And consumers so far have been absolutely wonderful. But imagine a few decades ago if you had walked in and you would’ve said, “Oh, you going to receive a 3D-printed device.” You might have been like, “Sorry, what?”
Carolyn Solley:
Yeah, exactly. And that’s what’s so buoyant about it is just, it’s unimaginable technology that you’re producing. It’s really, really fantastic. But I do love that story. I think the idea that someone feels so comfortable that they can make themselves a tea, a cup of tea, is just such a fantastic story
Mathilde Desselle:
And it leads onto other opportunities. So, that particular consumer is involved with a larger group, which is a peer support group for burn survivors. And so they have get-together where people can come and share experiences and stories. So, leading on from that, they asked if could they meet here?
Carolyn Solley:
Wow.
Mathilde Desselle:
And so we said, “Yes, you can absolutely meet here.” So, in a few weeks’ time, just in a couple of weeks, we have that group of the peer support for burn survivors, who’s going to come and spend an afternoon here, and they’re bringing a speaker who’s the first person to receive a particular type of medical device that’s to heal the skin following severe burns. Again, incredibly brave individuals. We’re going to have these people coming, they bring their own speaker. It’s been a come and share their experience, and then some people might like to come and take a look at the lab and look at what our latest advances are using 3D-printing technologies for burns care. So, I’m looking forward to it.
Carolyn Solley:
Yeah, that sounds great. What a fantastic opportunity for the facility to be utilised in that way. Actually, you mentioned the burns support group and understand you’re doing more than just 3D printing within the facility. You’re also working on different apps and VR technology. Is that the case?
Mathilde Desselle:
Yeah, so we’ve also been using the space, so you designed for us a room that we use extensively. It’s called the Innovation Hub, which is a very flexible space that’s got beautiful big screens for AV and microphones and cameras, and a way to configure seating so we can have it very formal or very casual. So, we’re very, I guess, flexible, plastic space, and we’ve been running a lot of co-design sessions in that room with burn survivors and with burns conditions as well to be able to start integrating virtual reality technologies, integrating care. So, virtual reality for healthcare, it’s actively exploding, but the hardware and software combinations that existed there are not always particularly suitable to use in the specific context of burns care and of public health as well.
Carolyn Solley:
Have you noticed any changes in your colleagues since the Institute’s been open?
Mathilde Desselle:
Yes. I think people are being perhaps even more trans- and multi-disciplinary than ever before. Last Friday, I was processing a 3D scan of a patient. I don’t get to do it very much anymore, but once in a while, I like to take the scan and process it myself and I make a point of not doing it at my desk, I’ll go in the lab to do it. So, I take the scans, seen the patient, I’ve scanned them, and I went to the lab and I plug in one of the big high-performance computers and I’m starting to process my scan. I’m not saying anything to anyone.
Next second, I’ve got one of our designers who’s walking past and starting to point things on the screen. Be like, “Oh, what is this here? And is this an artefact there?” And da-di-da. The next minute, I’ve got one of our biomedical engineers who I can just call out and say, “Hey, I think, can you check, but can you check this particular feature there? It looks a little weird. What do you think?” So, he’s able to do that. And three minutes later, one of our surgeons, he’s going to walk in, and I’m able to say, “Ah, perfect. You are here. Come and have a look at this because the three of us have been wondering about this particular feature here and I’m not sure what to do about it. What do you think?” And so that surgeon is able to come and have a look.
So, the problem was solved through that beautiful, organic, free-flowing, multidisciplinary collaboration that we had between engineers, designers, and that surgeon who is looking after that particular patient. So, we were able to solve it in four minutes by being organically able to solve that by walking past each other, which we would not have been able to do previously before we had that opportunity for co-location.
Carolyn, if I could ask a last question to you. If you had to do this again or if another hospital in Asia-Pacific were looking at setting up their own version of what we have here, what would be your advice to them, if you had to do it different again now? Is there something you would do differently?
Carolyn Solley:
Oh, I think I would definitely do a lot of things. Well, I think I would do things the same, in that making sure that we design for people, I think, first and foremost. So, really understanding the brief of the people. Suggesting that it is a co-located facility because all of your anecdotes kind of respond to how important co-location is with other clinical areas. I also would think that relifing or repurposing a building, particularly space that might be underutilised. So, sort of giving it new life through a facility like HBI would be really beneficial for those different facilities in Asia-Pacific. So, I don’t necessarily think we would do anything differently. I think we would just make sure that we’re always designing for people.
Thank you so much, Mathilde, for your time. It was really incredible and I just love all those variety of anecdotes were just awesome.
Mathilde Desselle:
That was really fun. I haven’t done a podcast in a while, so that was fun.
Carolyn Solley:
I’m Carolyn Solley. You’ve been listening to an episode of Hassell Talks. Please subscribe and leave us a review where you can. We’d love for you to share your thoughts and feedback with us on the insights we gather from across our network of designers, researchers, clients, and collaborators like Mathilde. Don’t forget, you can find out about our work and insights at hassellstudio.com. This episode was produced by Prue Vincent and Michelle Bailey.
