‘A Room With a View’ – Challenging the Norm, Restorative Design and Empowered Co-production at Water Meadow View

Synopsis

Water Meadow View is Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust’s new £32M, 14 bed mental health support facility for adults with Learning Disabilities. Located on a 50-acre rural site within the grounds of Guild Park, the new facility has been co-designed with Service users, Experts by experience, Peer support workers, Clinical champions, Nursing leads, and families creating a true person-centred design. The new environments created support and facilitate the Trust’s Trauma informed care approach, least restrictive practices and Neurodiversity awareness.
From the outset, the aspiration and vision for the facility was to challenge the norm of inpatient MH building, create a holistic LD focused environment that responds to real service user need and want, and is unashamedly ambitious in its goal of creating an inspiring, therapeutic and restorative setting with a real sense of ‘place’. This manifests itself in a number of ways, from its idyllic rural, hillside location taking in breath-taking views of the surrounding Lancashire countryside, to its functional content including a mixture of traditional ES bedrooms and single occupancy flats promoting service user choice, empowerment and independent living.

One of the key drivers of the project was to imbed the new building into a supportive Community setting and help Service users stay connected with their homes, communities and loved ones. The site chosen, albeit rural, is on the periphery of a major new Housing development that includes new community infrastructure, civic investment and public amenities. The Master planning involved close liaison and consultation with Homes England and the local authority to embed this MH build symbiotically within the local plan.

The connection with nature and the landscape is a huge feature of the WMV project and design. This holistic approach went beyond minimizing environmental impact and looked to actively regenerate ecosystems and enrich the green context, revitalizing and strengthening community links and restoring balance and wellbeing between building users and the natural world.
Sensory design themes, when developed in partnership with service users, can create environments that not only meet clinical needs but also enhance wellbeing, safety, and autonomy. Landscape, setting, views out and connection to nature were key themes developed from our EBE/SU engagement workshops, and this informed the final landscape design. The question of ‘look and feel’ was also driven by the engagement workshops with the final approach to the massing, detailing and form directly influenced by this. Ie a non-institutional, intentionally ambiguous design aesthetic. The impact of co-production was significant, influencing both the