Lovely vs Ugly – Where is the Interface Between Beauty and Safety in Mental Health Design?

Synopsis

This talk will explore the historical learning curve of mental health architecture and product design and pose the question of whether safety has become more important than beauty in mental health building design. When creating secure and therapeutic environments there is a balance between creating a therapeutic healing space and reducing risk to create safe ‘zero risk’ spaces but have we gone too far in reducing the risks and overlooked the therapeutic benefits of beauty? Who are we designing buildings for – is it to heal patients or is it to make it easier to clean and maintain?