Space Syntax Lab Staff wins prestigious Marsden Fund award scheme

Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, from The Bartlett School of Architecture, teamed up with Otago Medical School staff (University of Otago, NZ), Dr Gabriell Jenkin (Project PI) and Dr Debbie Peterson – under the mentorship of Professor Sunny Collings (Dean & Head of Campus University of Otago Wellington – to win a prestigious Marsden Fund Grant 2016 from the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Their project ‘Acute Mental Health Wards: Therapeutic Spaces or Stigmatizing Places?’ is a multidisciplinary study that draws on perspectives from social science, psychiatry, nursing and architecture to understand the architectural design, therapeutic philosophy and social regime of the modern acute mental health unit in New Zealand. It aims to answer questions regarding the purpose of the new psychiatric space, its therapeutic philosophy, and the basis of their architectural design and social regime.