At the Arts+Health kick-off event at Kunsthaus Zürich, Prof. Dr. Anna Lisa Martin-Niedecken shared insights into our work at ZHdK Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and within the Digital Health Design Living Lab.

At the core was a key question: How can we design health holistically – from the first idea to real-world implementation?

More and more projects explore the positive impact of the arts on health or vice versa. What we aim to add is a complementary perspective: How can we systematically design for this impact?

Our approach is clearly design-driven: Design connects people, disciplines, structures complex challenges and translates insights into tangible, experienceable, and validated solutions.

Within the Living Lab, we combine design research methods with an evidence-based design process. Through iterative cycles – from problem definition to research, ideation and implementation – we not only explore potential impact, but actively design, test and refine it.

A key element is co-design: We involve patients, relatives, professionals, researchers and all other stakeholders early and continuously. This allows us to connect scientific evidence with lived experience – fostering acceptance, co-ownership and long-term use.

The result: solutions that are not only conceptually promising, but demonstrably effective in practice – creating value for evidence-based healthcare and medicine, and ultimately for people and their health.

Selected DHD LL-projects – from AI-supported decision-making in emergency and intensive care to game-based rehabilitation, healthy ageing and ethical questions in digital health – illustrated how this approach is applied.