Joint Seminar GCI & BME - To Touch is to Understand: Design, Health, and the Future of Patient-Centred Visualisation
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This event is proudly hosted in collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Presenters:
- A/Prof Rochus Hinkel, Melbourne School of Design
- Dr Charles Larson, Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne
Date & Time: Wednesday, 19 August 12.00 - 1.00pm
Venue: Hybrid event
- BME Boardroom G32, 203 Bouverie St, CARLTON
- or via ZOOM (Meeting ID: 868 3971 9540, Passcode: 971191)
Abstract:
Congenital heart disease affects one in one hundred births, yet the anatomical complexity of individual cardiac conditions remains profoundly difficult to communicate to patients, families, and clinical teams alike. Kit of Hearts is a collaboration between the Melbourne School of Design and the Royal Children's Hospital that addresses this gap through patient-specific 3D printed anatomical models and digital visualisations, transforming how clinicians counsel families and how families understand diagnosis.
This talk traces the iterative design process behind Kit of Hearts – from clinical need to fabrication, from expert feedback to bedside application – and reflects on what genuine cross-disciplinary collaboration between design and health produces that neither field achieves alone. Looking forward, we explore how design thinking, visualisation, and physical modelling can open new approaches to making complexity legible – turning complex information into something that can be seen, held, experienced and better understood.
About the Presenters:
A/Prof Rochus Hinkel is an architect and designer, and Associate Professor at the Melbourne School of Design, who uses technology to design for health, heritage, and more-than-human worlds. His practice spans design, digital fabrication, and interdisciplinary collaboration, developing experiences, artefacts, and products that connect people, ideas, and technologies. As Co-Founder of Kit of Hearts, he translates complex medical knowledge about congenital heart disease into human-centred communication tools, including 3D anatomical models and digital visualisations. Current collaborations include the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, the Olkola Aboriginal Corporation, the Museum of the World in Stockholm, and colleagues from Bioscience at the University of Melbourne. His work is developed with composers, artists, health experts, and cultural specialists, and has been exhibited internationally at venues including Ars Electronica and Melbourne Design Week.
Dr Charles Larson is a paediatric intensivist and Head of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, where he leads care for children undergoing surgical repair of congenital heart disease. Frustrated by how poorly this complex anatomy is communicated to families, trainees, and the multidisciplinary team, he began exploring how design thinking could transform the way congenital heart disease is communicated and taught. This led to the founding of Kit of Hearts, a project that straddles the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne School of Design. The project produces precision 3D tactile and digital cardiac models as educational tools for patients, families, and clinicians; and sits at the intersection of clinical medicine, industrial design, and health communication. Charles believes that by improving how people understand the heart, we can improve outcomes for children living with congenital heart disease.