Step Exhibitions
National Forensic Mental Health Service Hospital, Dublin
Nominee Information
Guiding Principles:
A new era in Ireland’s Mental Health Services, the National Forensic Hospital exploits the therapeutic value of nature in a discreetly secure setting to support a recovery-focused service-user pathway through High Secure, Medium, Low and Step-Down care. In contrast to the previous 1850’s hospital within Dublin, site selection was informed by its attractive woodland setting, coastal views, and the outdoor space it offered service-users.
Layout Concept:
The hospital is planned to promote social interaction, preventing boredom in those undergoing long-term care and provide opportunities for service-users to engage with the world around them.
The ward buildings form a secure internal perimeter around a landscaped ‘Village Green’ that allows service-users to safely access shared spaces more independently, in a normalised environment with an absence of visible secure fences.
Village Green:
The Green is designed as a parkland setting with large broadleaf trees, understory groundcover planting, and large mown grass lawns. A dedicated horticulture area, consisting of market gardens, an animal husbandry area, poly tunnels, and a bee keeping area, acts as a skills centre for patients and provides a form of healing and relaxation. A large ornamental garden, located adjacent to the hospital’s Shared Activity Centre, acts as a key destination point within the Green. It is divided into four spaces: a convivial Village Café spill-out and barbeque area, scented garden, rose garden, and bulb garden. Positioned off the main circulation of the village green they offer a more contemplative space. A Children’s Visiting Garden provides important activity space. Sunken to
provide separation and privacy from the wider facility, it consists of a winding, path that weaves around a mounded rubber play surface. To shelter from the prevailing south-westerly winds, the buildings are nestled in amongst the woodland and orientated to the north, south and east. This makes the Green a more pleasant year-round space. Coloured glazed entrances to the ward buildings, which are illuminated at night, enable clear wayfinding.
Wards:
To meet the differing needs of service-users, each ward has four distinct types of outside space: a visitor courtyard; a service-user-only courtyard for respite and socialising; an active courtyard for informal sport games; and dedicated discrete seclusion gardens. Each outdoor space has generous roof overhangs providing shelter from rain, wind, and sun, to be useful in all seasons. Outdoor exercise equipment provides opportunities to improve physical health and mental wellbeing. The wards’ extensive glazing provides sufficient observation that enabled the hospital to decide that the therapeutic benefits of trees in ward courtyards outweighed their risk.
Context:
Around the site perimeter, generous wildflower meadows are planted to attract new wildlife. Plants and local tree species were chosen to integrate with the surrounding area at its boundaries and to provide shelter and amenity. With this background, the hospital’s secure outer perimeter fence simply disappears. Staff have informed us that since being accommodated in the new hospital, patients are demonstrating a lower blood pressure during health checks, and they believe this is a result of the therapeutic nature of the environment.
