Step Exhibitions
Trinity Building for the South West London& St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust – CF Møller et al
Nominee Information
We were fortunate in our work at Springfield that we started with a client brief that prioritised patient well-being, but the most important attitude which guided our work over the 12 years that it took to deliver the Trinity building at Springfield University Hospitals was this:
What kind of a place would I want to be in if I were using these mental healthcare services? An early challenge was to understand that an overriding focus on risk leads to sterile, custodial surroundings. Concentrating persons with severe mental illness in closed wards and de-risking the environment means that service users are left with little to do, apart from eating, sleeping, taking medications and watching TV. This model of care places excessive and possibly unnecessary burdens on staff resourcing. It also leads to demeaning and undignified environments.
We have sought to turn the paradigm around and start by imagining activities that are possible for service users to undertake independently with an acceptable level of risk, according to their level of acuity and individual desires. We have designed spaces and nooks where patients can make their own tea/coffee, read, play games, sit outside, garden, cook, exercise, dance, sing, listen to music, pray, meditate, work, use a computer, learn new skills etc. We worked with Trust clinicians to find ways to allow greater individual empowerment to fill a day with meaningful pursuits, and make a service-user’s stay therapeutic, beneficial and safe.
The next generation of mental health facilities should aim to be comforting and uplifting: places of healing for patients, places of pride for staff, places of reassurance for relatives, friends and carers. The following means have been employed in the Trinity building to achieve this result:
Daylight: all spaces, including back-of-house staff areas have daylight and a view of the sky
Inside-Outside: wherever possible a room has windows opening in two directions, which vastly improves the connection between indoors and outdoors and gives a sense of openness which is so often lacking in mental health facilities.
Quiet: Adequate sound insulation between spaces and sound absorbing surfaces within spaces have been built into the building fabric.
Outdoor Space: providing as much outdoor space as possible within a direct line of sight of the ward base, to de-risk and improve access to outdoor space.
Gardens: incorporating gardens with a variety of plants, textures, colours that change throughout the seasons. Outpatients, inpatients, visitors or members of staff can sit in a garden and decompress, surrounded by nature.
Comfortable and Cosy: providing pods, nooks, bay windows, window seats and built-in furniture in corridors and other functional spaces to create opportunities for beneficial activities.
Activation: promoting activities beyond watching TV means incorporating built-in bookshelves and chessboards for games tables, art rooms, exercise/dance/singing/music rooms, ‘soft’ and ‘quiet’ rooms.
Art: integrating artwork wherever possible to raise the quality of the environment. Hospital Rooms have curated a series of major artworks within the hospital. They enrich, surprise, inspire, and uplift what otherwise would be blank, silent walls.
