ANDRUM “Creating a shelter, a mental health-care clinic, for body and soul.” Fredrika Stelander How can architectural elements be altered to be better suited to the mental healthcare patients? Furthermore, how can architecture work as an active vessel to let hospitals, in this case a mental health care clinic, favor from the forest and natures capacity to calm a worried mind and tend a broken soul? The architecture in mental healthcare are repeatedly based upon the same qualities set for the rest of the hospital. Through my research I came to the realization that architecture within the psychiatry, was more customized to physical healthcare and not mental healthcare. By decomposing these impersonal white institutions, we can start bringing in the human scale and let the structure reconnect to nature which, throughout my research, turned out to be reoccurring requests by this specific patient group. My answer became to develop a more humane and adapted mental health care clinic, by extracting the long-term patients from the psychiatric emergency wards to buildings in much smaller scale, where the patients wouldn’t feel intimidated, but could begin her/his journey to recovery. Another important strategy was to insert nature in the healing process. The aim was to give the patients a feeling of safety yet freedom. Thus, the premises should be enclosed and secure but at the same time, shouldn’t give the patients a sense of being trapped or institutionalized. My architecture would rather create a sense of playfulness, where the spaces are to be divided in smaller islands linked with passageways which invite nature into the building. A close attention to the topography and the identification of cultural values through site visits, became the most efficient methods to develop a project that would relate to function and the nature of the site. The corridors which collectively were called “the promenade through seasons”, became important elements to be able to interlace the forest with the buildings and a way for the patients’ to reconnect and enjoy nature, regardless season.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-171778 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Stelander, Fredrika |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Arkitekthögskolan vid Umeå universitet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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