Finding Space - Art & Architecture at Dykebar Psychiatric Hospital

the island

2007-11-12T19:00:00.000Z

Staff and patients enjoy the celebrations to open 'The Island' with an energetic drumming performance, buffet lunch and Tai Chi session.

Artist Jane Kelly's new work adjacent to the Acute unit at Dykebar Hospital offers a Tai Chi, Yoga and Meditation area, a herb garden and space for individual and group work in many areas of activity including relaxation, drama, art, kitchen sessions and horticultural therapy.

My overall aspiration was to design a small site specific garden which Richard Anderson describes in ‘The Power of Place’ as the kind of space which would "create and enhance a community’s sense of place, wholeness and well being". Jane Kelly

Full details

The Corridor

2007-10-02T19:57:00.000Z

"The subject of Donald Urquhart’s new work is iconic. The long central corridor at Dykebar Psychiatric Hospital embodied the myopic vision underpinning the architectural temperament of the institution.."

We are pleased to announce the opening of Donald Urquhart's new artwork The Corridor.

For full information about the artwork please follow the links below.
commentary
interview
concept
video
evaluation

Mental Image

2007-09-10T10:43:00.000Z

Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival.

30 events between 4th - 18th Octoer 2007 including films, gigs, literature, theatre, debates, exhibitions and more...

www.mhfestival.com

the island

2007-06-19T12:50:00.000Z

Artist Jane Kelly has created detailed designs for a new artwork adjacent the the Acute Unit. Taking the form of a horticultural therapy, Yoga and Tai Chi garden, 'the island' provides a special place outside that can be used by patients, staff and visitors as a refuge.

Full design proposal
Research and consultation

ArtFull

2007-06-16T09:35:00.000Z

A national initiative developed with the aim of articulating, developing and promoting the arts and the role they play in improving the mental health and well-being of people living in Scotland.
www.artfull.org

Art and Science

2007-05-22T10:32:00.000Z

Environmental psychologist Dr Eddie Edgerton from the University of Paisley has published the findings of his evaluation of the redesigned corridor at Dykebar.

The detailed evaluation used behaviour mapping and survey tools to produce systematic, objective, empirical and verifiable results.

So how did the art measure up?

View the full report

Vitamin G

2007-02-10T20:19:00.000Z

Looking out on and being in the green elements of the landscape around us seem to affect health, well-being and feelings of social safety.

A four year reserach program based in the Netherlands has begun to explore three projects at three different scales. Little is known about the strength of the relationships, possible social differences, and the spatial conditions that promote beneficial effects of nearby nature.

The research program Vitamin G aims to fill up these knowledge gaps.

The Vitamin G article discusses the design of a research program on the effects of green space in the living environment on health, well-being and social safety.

The full document is available to view here

Presentation from Chicago Symposium

2006-12-21T17:55:00.000Z

Marc Schweitzer, Senior Architect at The Design Partnership in San Francisco has kindly sent the presention from the 'Healing Spaces for Psychiatric Care' lecture given at the Healthcare Facilities Symposium and Expo 2006 in Chicago.

This fascinating document offers a unique oppotunity to see current research from the US on the elements of environmental design that impact health. The document includes designs and documentation of projects in a variety of contexts including; STARS (pictured above), Alameda County Mental Health Campus and Camarillo Hospital Children's Unit.

The document is available to view here (PDF 4Mb).

We would like to thank Bradley Karlin Ph.D., , Psychology Service, VA Palo Alto, Marc Schweitzer, Senior Architect, The Design Partnership and Deborah Grizzard, Chief Nurse Mental Health Service, VA Palo Alto for allowing us to include this presentation.

Published content: Karlin, B. E., & Zeiss, R. A. (2006). Environmental and therapeutic issues in psychiatric hospital design: Toward best practices. Psychiatric Services, 57, 1376-1378.

it reminds me of when I was young and used to go outside

2006-11-12T20:29:00.000Z

'..the reality was that patients already spent inordinate periods of time wandering up and down the space. I had accepted this reality and created a calmer and more restful environment in which they could spend time.'

With the redevelopment of the main corridor at Dykebar Hospital complete we talked to the artist Donald Urquhart about the making of this new work.
Full interview and images of the finished space.

Flotsam

2006-11-01T17:20:00.000Z

‘It was like being in the water after the ship had sunk,
having music was like having a plank to hang onto.’ (P)

Courtyard of the hospital at Arles (1889)
by Vincent Van Gogh

BBC Radio 4 Case Notes. This week Dr Mark Porter finds out whether art and music can really help to improve people’s health and well-being.

Mike White from the Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health & Medicine believes the arts have a therapeutic effect. There’s growing evidence that they can bring about physical changes to the body. Research has suggested that patients who listen to live music in hospital need fewer drugs and recover more quickly.

Professor Paul Robertson has studied the effect of music on the brain, and especially how it can help people with mental health problems.

In Bristol the Royal Children’s Hospital was designed with the help of artists to help create a relaxed and interesting environment for children and their families.

Full Transcript of Case Notes.

Healing Spaces for Psychiatric Care

2006-10-15T20:06:00.000Z

Heathcare Facilities Symposium and Expo.
October 24-25 2006. Navy Pier Chicago, IL.
Full programme

On Thursday 26th Oct 2006 at 9am, Bradley Karlin Ph.D., Psychology Service, VA Palo Alto, Marc Schweitzer, Senior Architect, The Design Partnership and Deborah Grizzard, Chief Nurse Mental Health Service, VA Palo Alto will lead the session:
Healing Spaces for Psychiatric Care: Current research on the Elements of Environmental Design that Impact Health.

‘The "ambiance" of a space has an effect on people using the space. Recently, mainstream design for health care environments has begun to include esthetic enhancements in an attempt to reduce stress and anxiety, increase patient satisfaction, and promote health and healing.
Using our current 80-bed Inpatient Acute Psychiatric Facility project for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Palo Alto, CA as a model, we will present a comprehensive survey of the existing research on those elements of the built and natural environment most often asserted by proponents as being inherently healing or promoting health.
The information will be structured in a hierarchy of effect ranging from simply nontoxic to safe (both physically and psychologically) to "providing a positive context" to being actively salutogenic. ’
http://www.hcaredesign.com

Not Actual Size

2006-05-23T22:15:00.000Z

Full screen image Press Image
[Update June 2007:
Jane Kelly developed ambitious detailed designs for the central courtyard, these were supported by the client team, however the required additional; funding to realise her work have proved difficult to secure. Jane has therefore now focussed on working with the OT department to provide a small garden and reflective area adjacent to the Acute Unit.]

Exploring the enchanted garden as mankinds most constant and consoling myth (Clark), artist Jane Kelly has developed designs for the courtyard at Dykebar. The simulation, variously seasonal, gives an idea of how the garden might develop over time.

Included within the simulation are Kelly’s ideas for reduced hard paved areas (replaced by planting and silver-grey limestone stack paving stones), wooden sitting edges surrounding a central secluded ‘quiet’ area, a colour palette of tiled walls, glazing and planting and

through consultation with staff in the Occupational Therapy department at the hospital, a horticultural therapy area, referencing the now abandoned victorian working gardens.

Detailed design proposal

Meander

2006-02-26T12:10:00.000Z

‘In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world.’
The Famished Road by Ben Okri

Two structures have been built, from floor to ceiling, to alter the profile of the corridor. They are part of Donald Urquhart’s development of the central corridor at Dykebar Hospital. Urquhart’s intention is to soften the perspective of the corridor and ‘subtly interrupt the straight lines of the corridor by reducing the width on either side in two consecutive areas, creating more of a ‘meander’.

Urquhart’s work on the corridor is in progress.
View the full details and design simulations.

Peace on Earth

2005-12-24T21:41:00.000Z

Henderson Clark´s transformation the Rec Hall uses ten and a half thousand Christmas Lights.

Henderson describes the space as both ‘calming and exciting’, it provides the set for communal celebrations; ‘we have a big event to switch on the lights and the hall is packed, a carol concert with the choir from South School, karaoke, sing alongs and a Christmas Dance’.

At other times it provides a sanctuary.. ‘people often sit and reminisce about their earliest memories of Christmas’.

Zoological?

2005-11-21T13:03:00.000Z

‘What would a building space look and feel like if it were designed to promote psychological and social well-being? How would it affect the senses, the emotions, and the mind? How would it affect behavioral patterns and sense of community?

For insights, it is useful to look not at buildings, but at zoos. Zoo design has gone through a radical transformation in the past several decades. Cages have been replaced by natural habitats and geographic clustering of animals. In some places, the animals are free–ranging and the visitors are enclosed in buses or trains moving through the habitat. Animals now exist in mixed species exhibits more like their natural landscapes. And, as in nature, the animals have much greater control over their behavior. They can be on view if they want, or out of sight. They forage, play, rest, mate, and act like normal animals.

What brought about this transformation in philosophy and design? A key factor was concern over the animals’ psychological and social well-being. Zoos could keep animals alive, but they couldn't make them flourish. Caged animals often exhibit neurotic behaviors – pacing, repetitive motions, aggression, and withdrawal. In one famous example, an animal psychologist was hired by the Central Park Zoo to study a polar bear that spent the day swimming in endless figure 8s in its small pool. This was not normal polar bear behavior and the zoo was concerned about it. After several days of observation, the animal psychologist offered a diagnosis. The bear was bored.’
Extract from Psychosocial Value of Space by Judith Heerwagen

Growing cultures - antibiotic art?

2005-11-21T12:10:00.000Z

‘The interior appears to have grown organically over time by a process of accretion similar to the formation of mould. At some point, a complex wooden network began to grow up the walls of the entrance area. Growing across the ceilings, it covered the windows and the strange ceiling murals with transparent webs of carved wooden tracery. Human faces, painted on the ceiling, peer down through the maze of wooden forms.’

Extracts and photographs from
The Architecture of Madness – Raw Vision No41.
John MacGregor examines the Junker House in Lemgo Germany.

‘It’s creator Karl Junker (1850-1912), was a highly trained architect, whose entire career and only building was this house.’

In his 1928 publication ‘Das Junkerhaus zu Lemgo’
Dr Gerhard Kreyenberg details his diagnosis of Karl Junker’s schizophrenia and connections between that diagnosis and the style and content of the house.

Although more detailed externally the house is similar to local vernacular with one stark difference, it has about twice as much glass. Junker created an extravagant interior for a family, yet appears to slept and worked in tiny attic rooms. He carved into the building, furniture and sculpture to make a rich and complex web of nature and formal religious iconography.

How Junkers concrete expression of his internal reality (through the creation of his personal space) impacted on his health are unclear, as no writings by Junker have been found, although the reality his vision and the process of its realisation are undeniable.

Junker house website in German

The Discovery of the Art of the Insane book by John MacGregor

The Business of Care

2005-11-21T11:46:00.000Z

‘I think good design affects different people in different ways. For patients it offers an optimistic and human setting at a time when they’re anxious and vulnerable. For staff it provides a dignified environment to perform their duties in a functional way and for management it provides an efficient setting for the business of care.’ Susan Francis – Architectural Adviser, NHS Estates / NHS Confederation

OnDesign opinion Design issues and themes watch videos

OnDesign, the centralised resource for healthcare design professionals.

and the winner is...

2005-11-11T11:32:00.000Z

The results of the Dykebar Postcard Competition 2005.

'my favouite place'

Courtyard Garden – a new social ‘heart’

2005-09-07T01:24:00.000Z

I’m interested in the designed landscape, particularly gardens and walled gardens. That theme has run through all my work from very early on… I think that what I’m making is a kind of paradise. I’m quite interested in the concept of paradise..

Artist Jane Kelly has been working with patients, staff and visitors at Dykebar to explore the rich history of agricultural and horticultural site use in relation to clinical care and therapeutic activities. Kelly has used this research to develop designs for a new courtyard garden.

Long corridors, terrifying long corridors and murals

2005-09-07T01:20:00.000Z

one of the things that really struck me on first viewing was that it was fifty metres long… featureless, daunting.. almost Hitchcockian…Here you have a main corridor serving as a visual and physical reminder that you’re in an institution.
watch video interview.
The redevelopment of the main corridor in Dykebar is underway. The artist Donald Urquhart‘s detailed designs reveal a different perspective.

PLOT - Psychiatric Hospital Denmark

2005-09-07T01:19:00.000Z

Theatre of illusion or psycho-mayonaise? Know that feeling of entering a space that has an illusive quality, something you cannot quite grasp, yet it enhances the mind, focuses the thought, reveals an intention, compels you? The curtain draws on PLOT the architectural practice who translate your stories to create your script.

‘PLOT was founded in Copenhagen in January 2001 by architects Julien De Smedt and Bjarke Ingels. PLOT was founded in order to develop an architectural practice that turns intense research and analysis of practical as well as theoretical issues into the driving forces of design.

A better way to explain the office's design philosophy and process is to explain its name: a narrative is a series of events, that are tied together in a PLOT. Each event contains insight, drama and beauty in itself, but without the PLOT they risk to fail and become nothing but the sum of the parts. Individually the incidents may seem random or pointless, but joined they culminate in a transcending will. In the same way the PLOT makes architecture more than a random accumulation of toilets and bedrooms. Beautiful details and individual moments get lost if nothing is at stake - if the PLOT is missing...

As the base of design we interviewed patients, personel and relatives related to the psychiatric hosptial. No truth emerged, but a series of paradoxes became evident. The PSY needs to combine the efficiency of a central organsiation with the freedom and autonomy of a decentralised complex. It needs to allow control and protection while maintaining a free and open atmosphere. In terms of function the PSY is a logistically optomised hospital and in terms of experience it is all but a hospital.’
Helsingor Psychiatric Hospital
Cited by Jane Kelly

The Architecture of Health - BBC Radio 4

2005-09-07T01:18:00.000Z

Wed 21 Sep, 21:00 - 21:30 30 mins
Second of a two part programme

A well-designed healthcare building is not just for show. It has now been proved scientifically that certain aspects of a hospital's design can actually contribute to speedier recovery, better working of the immune system and a safer stay in hospital, with fewer infections and medical errors.

Dykebar Postcard Competition

2005-09-07T01:16:00.000Z

The Environmental Development Group invite you to enter your Digital Photos to make a postcard for Dykebar Hospital.

Full details of how to enter.

Salutogenesis at Philipps-University Marburg

2005-09-07T01:12:00.000Z

Moving within the building the sense of coherence of the physicians, patients and students is challenged.

As doctors, lecturers of students and seniors to our juniors we
perform on the lowest level, namely level 3 among all laboratories and post mortems of today’s Cartesian medicine. We have to overcome five to seven floors in order to reach the top floors where our patients are. Those floors represent the cultural sedimentations rates which have led to the "crisis of European science". The sedimentation is between us and the phenomena, we are covered by sediment. How can we get rid of it?
Wolfram Schüffel

Evaluating changes to the environment at Dykebar

2005-09-07T01:10:00.000Z

Environmental Psychologist, Dr Eddie Edgerton (University of Paisley) is leading evaluation work to assess the impact of environmental changes at Dykebar.

Finding Space - Art & Architecture at Dykebar Psychiatric Hospital

the island

The Corridor

Mental Image

the island

ArtFull

Art and Science

Vitamin G

Presentation from Chicago Symposium

it reminds me of when I was young and used to go outside

Flotsam

Courtyard of the hospital at Arles (1889)by Vincent Van Gogh

Healing Spaces for Psychiatric Care

Not Actual Size

Meander

Peace on Earth

Zoological?

Growing cultures - antibiotic art?

The Business of Care

and the winner is...

Courtyard Garden – a new social ‘heart’

Long corridors, terrifying long corridors and murals

PLOT - Psychiatric Hospital Denmark

The Architecture of Health - BBC Radio 4

Dykebar Postcard Competition

Salutogenesis at Philipps-University Marburg

Evaluating changes to the environment at Dykebar

Courtyard of the hospital at Arles (1889)
by Vincent Van Gogh