PD Dr. Tom Guthknecht

Tom Guthknecht studied architecture (Dipl.Ing.) at the University of Karlsruhe and Health Facilty Planning (M.A.) at the Medical Architecture Research Unit, University of North London. In 1995 he published a PhD thesis regarding the subject “Planning Instruments for the Hygiene Planning of Health Facilities” He carries out health facility projects in various countries in Europe as well as in Asia and the Pacific Region. In parallel to this he was from 1998 to 2005 in charge of the development of an applied research project in an innovative opto-spectroscopic technology in partnership with Hewlett-Packard/Agilent. In 2006 he founded the Lausanne Health and Hospitality Group with special focus on health maintenance and disease prevention to be applied in innovative business case structures. From 2003 to 2010 he was HES-Professor at Ecole Hotelière de Lausanne and Glion-school in the fields of hospitality design as well as various subjects in the master courses. In 2010 he completed his professorial dissertation at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich (ETH) with regard to the subject “Integral Process Design – Synthesizing Building and Business Design of Health Care Buildings”. Since 2012 he is lecturer at ETH Zurich for Health Facility Planning and speaks regularly at international conferences. Since 2014 he is a research partner in a KTI-funded research project between ETH Zurich, Züricher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) and the Hochschule St. Gallen (HSG) as well as various industry partners developing strategies to improve the planning process of health facilities. In his other current research field he focuses upon joint business case models to harmonize health facility planning with prospective business design. The goal is the conceptualization of healistic facilities for the support of clients with chronic diseases and other long term impediments.

e-mail: guthknecht@arch.ethz.ch