Program: Florence

The Florence Project, located at the Bezalel Design and Innovation Lab at Soroka Hospital, represents a pioneering model of human-centered education rooted in real-world challenges. This collaboration immerses design and architecture students directly into the daily realities of a working hospital, empowering them to co-design meaningful, sustainable solutions alongside medical staff and patients.

At the heart of the project lies a commitment to human-centered design—an approach that places empathy, user needs, and lived experience at the core of every design decision. Students relocate to Be’er Sheva for an entire semester, embedding themselves in hospital wards to observe and interact with the people most affected by systemic healthcare challenges. Through direct engagement with hospital staff, patients, and caregivers, they gain an intimate understanding of the physical, emotional, and logistical dimensions of care environments.

Guided by an interdisciplinary team of Bezalel faculty and hospital mentors, students use design thinking methods—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—to develop solutions tailored to real human needs. This process is not hypothetical or confined to the classroom. It is deeply experiential, requiring students to respond to the constraints, urgencies, and sensitivities of the healthcare system in real time.

Ultimately, the Florence Project redefines what it means to learn design. It offers a human-centered learning environment where students don’t just study systems—they inhabit them, question them, and work to improve them. In doing so, it bridges the gap between academic knowledge and human impact, preparing a new generation of designers to engage with the world not just as problem solvers, but as compassionate, informed partners in change.

The Florence Project demonstrates the power of field-based, human-centered design education. It equips students not just with technical skills, but with empathy, resilience, and the ability to navigate complexity. Many alumni have since pursued careers in healthcare design or selected final projects aligned with healthcare innovation, attesting to the lasting impact of this intensive, immersive experience.

Students

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Country

Israel
Jerusalem

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