ENGAGE EMPATHETIC SENSITIVITY

#2 ENGAGE EMPATHETIC SENSITIVITY :

Current practice for design to improve mental health depends broadly on the wants and needs of the specific client, and the ethos of the practice in question. There are no statutory demands for this to be considered. The creation of organisations such as the ‘International WELL Building Institute’ which pioneered “the world’s first building standard focused exclusively on human health and wellness” and combines the “best practices in design and construction with evidence-based medical and scientific research– harnessing the built environment as a vehicle to support human health and wellbeing” [International Well Building Institute, 2014] is a huge step forward for architecture. However, due to the complexity and specific nature of different mental disorders a generalised solution can overlook more issues than it attempts to fix. As humans, our response to our surroundings is a very personal thing. Consider how we take great efforts to personalise our homes and workplaces in order to express ourselves and either aid relaxation or focus. When suffering mental ill health, responses are heightened and individuals may not only be super-sensitive to their environments, but also lack the capacity to control them [See Figure 2]. For example, the common opinion that “access to green spaces may [also] have more direct and immediate benefits for mental health and wellbeing” [Wentworth, 2016], is over-simplistic. For one person large expanses of green, open space may give great solace, however for someone suffering from anxiety, paranoia, autism or OCD, it may generate fear and panic. It is not enough for architects to assume adding green space to a design will improve mental health; not only can poorly managed or inaccessible green space become threatening, encourage dangerous behaviour and engender intimidation, but also the very size, nature and level of occupancy of a green space can heighten negative responses of those with varying mental health issues.

Certainly the causes and consequence of mental disorders can be complex, but this is equally true of many physical disorders. Therefore, it is the architect’s... empathetic sensitivity and skill… [of] being able to imagine human life, human emotion, and human situations…atmospheric qualities... -[Havik et al., 2013, p.43] ” “ which should be paramount when considering the city as an ‘avant-garde psychiatric unit’.

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