DESIGN IN MENTAL HEALTH AWARDS 2019
50-year history, and was considered unfit for purpose. The entry explained: ‘Accommodation comprised inpatient and outpatient facilities for users with a wide range of mental health needs. The existing wards were mixed sex, with some sleeping accommodation still in shared rooms. Sanitary accommodation was poor, and basic amenities limited. Day accommodation was restricted, with patients staying on the wards for long periods; access to the garden was also difficult.’ The building fabric had been poorly maintained, and the flat roof was failing. The elevations comprised repeating bays of large single-glazed steel windows and uninsulated brickwork. Consequently, the internal environment was either subject to disproportionate solar gain in summer, or excessive heat loss in winter. Working with the clinical teams and other stakeholders, Frederick Gibberd Partnership analysed the building’s current use, and devised strategies ‘to optimise use of the accommodation, address its various shortcomings, and exploit opportunities to improve the service in line with modern best practice guidelines’. The concept plan involved separating the service’s various parts so that inpatient and outpatient pathways were separated. The wards were relocated to the garden level, and arranged so that the proportion of rooms could be varied at will to address the gender split at any time. On the level above, a day hub was created planned around a garden patio, allowing patients to come off the wards below and access a range of therapy spaces. The building was also overclad ‘to transform its image’.
Art Installation of the Year James Lee, event director for Design in Mental Health 2019, presented the evening’s seventh award, for Art Installation of the Year, to Tyler Moorehead, Creative director at London-based art and design practice, TYMO London, and Alana Juman Blincoe, director of Evolve Psychology, for ‘Meet Me at the Upside Down Table’, which the judges dubbed ‘an engaging and inspiring concept, beautifully executed’.
An ‘interactive community mental health installation and experience, inspired by Japanese tea ceremonies and board game play’, the art installation is based in a community arts space next to a London Underground station, and incorporates ‘a bespoke tea table in the form of an esoteric board game, set among antique table linens as artefacts of memory’.
Constructed from plywood, recycled felt, leather offcuts, and vintage lace teapot covers, the table was inspired by origami, and ‘designed to function like a magical valise – a gateway to forgotten stories, hopes, and dreams’. The entry says: ‘Strips of vibrant recycled felt replace traditional tatami mats on the floor. Slabs of plywood placed astride bales of antique and vintage table linens stand in for tea house benches. The seating design requires the host and guest to sit together in balance to ensure comfort and security as they move together to each side of the table throughout the experience.’
Japanese philosophy
Drawing on the Japanese philosophy of tea as an intimate community encounter, the experience uses reflection and sensory stimulation ‘to create a safe space where visitors can speak freely without judgment to find peace’. As in Japanese ceremonies, the encounter uses ‘four guiding principles’ – of harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility, to help visitors ‘cherish their unpolished selves.’
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London, which provides outpatient mental health services both locally and nationally, was Highly Commended in this category for The Tavistock and Portman Banner – a collaborative project between the artist in residence, Rachael Causer, and banner maker, Ed Hall, during 2017-8. They worked closely with service-users, families, and staff, to design and make a visual emblem celebrating the work of the Trust and its community. At the project’s heart was a close engagement with service-users, via workshops, discussion sessions, and a postcard exchange asking what the Trust
meant to service-users. The entrants said that ‘through imagery and words’, the entry showed ‘understanding of emotional distress, and the ways in which listening and understanding in a safe space can give hope for the future’.
DiMH Recognition Award
The evening’s eighth and final award, the Design in Mental Health Recognition Award, nominated by the Design in Mental Health Network, was presented by the Network’s President, Joe Forster, to Dr Robert MacDonald, who Joe Forster explained was not only a distinguished architect and academic, but also an expert- by-experience. He said: “Rob says his experience of bipolar is not so much an illness as a unique viewpoint on life. He has made extensive use of that in improving the design of mental healthcare facilities both in his local area, and nationally, through his work with the Design in Mental Health Network.”
The entry explained that, despite nearing retirement from his academic career, Rob MacDonald ‘continues to collaborate in a wide variety of new and inventive developments’. These include an exemplar house co-designed by people living with dementia – the ‘Chris and Sally’s House’ at the BRE Innovation Park in Watford (The Network – April 2019), a presentation on the role of humour in mental health delivered as a stand-up comedy routine, and engagement as a design champion for major projects at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. Dr MacDonald has also ‘contributed to excellence in designs’ for cooperative housing, autism, urban planning, and community healthcare, and is a past director of the DiMHN.
Following the presentation of this final award, Andy Powell congratulated all the winners, and thanked the evening’s sponsors, and all those who had entered the awards, as well as the dinner guests, for attending. All the winners were then invited back to the stage for a series of photographs, bringing to a close a memorable evening.
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All the night’s award-winners take their place on stage for photos at the evening’s conclusion. THE NETWORK | JULY 2019 17
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