Architecture for Mental Health [Short Course]

This interactive workshop constitutes a rare opportunity to reflect on one of healthcare architecture’s greatest challenges.

Buildings for mental health are one of the most important chapters of medical architecture and planning. Psychiatric environments often promote stigma and institutionalization. Community care has set to change that, yet as research demonstrates psychiatric building stock resists to change. Yet, as mental illnesses present low accuracy in diagnosis and treatment, environment becomes of great significance. How do we transform buildings for mental health from spaces of control and exclusion to integrated, psychosocially supportive facilities?

This unique short course presents the state of the art on psychiatric provision. It breaks silos as it brings together world leading figures on design for mental health, clinicians and people who commission mental health buildings from the UK and the US to discuss openly what we could do differently. It combines academia with practice and real world problems such as the transformation of a metropolitan psychiatric campus.

The course is run by the Bartlett Real Estate Institute UCL and offers great networking opportunities.

Course overview

Introduction – From marginalization to social valorization: removing the stigma surrounding mental illness via design

Introduction on the day and State of the Art for Psychiatric Provision. The presentation will set the tone of the day and bring up the major questions that will shape mental health provision in the next decade. What are the consequences of one of the largest taboos in healthcare provision affecting so many among us? Is mental healthcare becoming mainstream? What major drivers such as integration of mental health into primary care mean for psychiatric provision? How could technology influence some of the most low-tech areas of healthcare environments? What does the ageing of the population means for mental health provision? How do we balance safety and community care? How can we reduce stigma by design? How can we design therapeutic environments for mental health?

 

Architecture as Medicine. The Importance of Architecture for Treatment Outcomes

Can architecture contribute to both individual recovery as well as efficient public investments? How do we deal with evidence and other kind of knowledge in the design-process? These are some of the matters that will be discussed in connection with the Östra psychiatric in-ward at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. An award-winning building later evaluated by research.

 

The St Pancras redevelopment programme

Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust is the largest provider of mental health and substance misuse services to people living within the London boroughs of Camden and Islington. The Trust sees 25,000-30,000 people a year and covers diverse boroughs with a BME population of 50%. We provide the full range of services for our adult population including talking therapies, a range of community based services, crisis care, acute in patient care and home treatment. We serve a population that is

highly mobile with 30 - 40% of our admissions for people who are previously unknown to our services. The population also has significant need compared with other parts of the country yet our current facilities in the community and particularly on the St Pancras site, are old, lack the required modern therapeutic and safety design, and are unfit for purpose.

The Trust has a history of delivering high levels of innovation and research. Our academics have been at the forefront in developing the evidence base for, amongst others, rehabilitation services, early intervention services, assertive outreach teams, crisis teams, crisis houses, dementia care, and physical health in psychosis.

 To deliver the future services that our population requires, the Trust has a comprehensive clinical strategy which focuses on:

building integrated services and greater capacity in primary care and community settings; integrating physical and mental health;

 

The St Pancras redevelopment programme enables an overarching transformation of the estate to progress effective delivery of our visionary Clinical Strategy along with national and local health strategies. It puts service users at the centre recognising there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform services across the two Boroughs, building more visible, more accessible and more integrated services for people locally alongside world class research driving the very best practice. Our vision is to use the St Pancras redevelopment programme as the opportunity to not only meet leading 21st century standards in facilities but to reshape the services themselves delivering high class local, integrated care and world class research.

• increasing access to all services;
• improving lives and wellbeing through wider integration of social and mental health support;
• reducing stigma.

 

Who this course is for:

The course is for a mix of professionals and students with an interest in environments for mental health and of multiple backgrounds: architects, designers, engineers, facility managers, healthcare planners, healthcare professionals, healthcare managers with an interest on healthcare buildings. Professionals of the care home sector might also find the course interesting as well as people working for capital planning and facilities and estates of the NHS.

Agenda

9.00am - Opening, coffee and networking

9.30am -  ‘Introduction on the day and overview of BREI research on psychiatric buildings’ by Dr Evangelia Chrysikou (Lecturer - Program Director MSc Healthcare Facilities, the Bartlett Real Estate Institute UCL)

10.30am - Break

10.45am - ‘Architecture as Medicine. The Importance of Architecture for Treatment Outcomes’ by Stefan Lundin (Architect SAR/MSA, partner White Arkitekter, Gothenburg Sweden. PdH-student, Centre for Health Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg, Sweden)

12.00pm - Lunch break and networking

13.00pm - ‘The St. Pancras redevelopment programme’ by Malcolm McFrederick (St Pancras Transformation Programme Director, Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust)

14.00pm - Break

14.30pm - ‘Workshop with participants and speakers’ by Dr Evangelia Chrysikou, Stefan Lundin, Larissa Lai

16.30pm - Key messages

17.00pm - Closure

Note: The exact times of the structure of the day may change slightly.

By the end of this short course you will:

• have an introduction to therapeutic design
• acquire a broader understanding of how buildings for mental health are expected to influence healthcare delivery
• get a glimpse of the potential of design and architecture but also the challenges /opportunities for healthcare facility designers
• get an overview of the potential of design for mental health and end-user experience
• have a general overview of healthcare buildings tender and NHS commissioning processes
• have the opportunity to interact and network with leading professionals, people commissioning projects and academics from multiple-disciplines and gain a multiple perspective on the subject.

• Soft outcome:

• Increase your understanding on working across sectors and collaborating with different disciplines
• Learn how to interact across sectors and increase your networking skills.

As a short course student you won't be formally assessed, but you're expected to fully participate in group work. You'll receive a certificate of attendance on completion of the course.

About the speakers:

Dr Evangelia Chrysikou DiplArch, MA MARU, PhD – course leader

Evangelia is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at The Bartlett Real Estate Institute, UCL in London, Program Director of the MSc Healthcare Facilities and a medical architect. She specialises in healthcare facilities, holding a rare PhD on mental health facilities from UCL and a former Marie Curie H2020 Fellow. She has been actively involved in policymaking, being Coordinator on D4 Action Group of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) of the European Commission (EC) and consulted, on behalf of the EC, the Hellenic Ministry of Health and the Centre of European Constitutional Law on legislation regarding mental health facilities. Her work on therapeutic environments has received prestigious international awards (Singapore 2009, Kuala Lumpur 2012, Brisbane 2013, Birmingham 2014, London 2014, Vienna 2017). Her research on mental health, ageing, accessibility and mental health, autism, social inclusion, healthcare, welfare and wellness facilities, medical architecture, medical tourism planning spans in several countries of the world (UK, France, Belgium, Greece, Middle East, Japan, New Zealand etc.). Currently, she is the PI on the Butterfield award of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and a CoI at a Marsden Fund from the Royal Society of New Zealand. Evangelia authored national guidelines for mental health facilities in the community for Greece on behalf of the EU. Additionally, she authored 2 books, is a healthcare architecture editor, reviewer, active member of several professional and scientific associations and a TED-MED speaker. She is also Member of the Board at the Scholar’s Association Onassis Foundation.

Malcolm McFrederick

Malcolm has a long history of working in the NHS, charitable and private health sectors. He has an operational background which allows him to function on the design and operation of services for patients, and how best the environment can support the needs of patients and clinicians. He has been a Chief Operating Officer in both physical acute and mental health Trusts in South East England. Prior to working in the NHS he worked in the private sector and was involved in the Princes Royal and Darent Valley Hospital PFI schemes.

Stefan Lundin

Stefan Lundin, partner, White Arkitekter. Since 2000 he has worked with facilities for mental care. The in-patient psychiatric treatment at Sahlgrenska University, Östra was awarded the 2007 Health building reward. How architecture contributes to recovery was discussed in Architecture as Medicine – the Importance of Architecture for Treatment Outcomes 2010. The same year Stefan became a doctoral student at The Centre for Healthcare Architecture. 2015 he presented his licentiate thesis Healing Architecture: Evidence, Intuition, Dialogue, and 2017 Forensic with a human face. Stefan has also been a co-writer to the article Psychiatric ward design can reduce aggressive behavior (2018) by Ulrich, Bogren, Gardiner & Lundin. During 2018 he attended a Swedish taskforce for design of psychiatric facilities.

Cost:

The standard course fee is £300.

A discounted rate of £150 is available for all students, UCL partners (including NHS) and staff.