DESIGN PHILOSOPHY AND THINKING
Richard Mazuch
Richard Mazuch, director of Design Research and Innovation at IBI Group, is an architect and designer who ‘gains great satisfaction from translating holistic ideas into radical but pragmatic solutions’. An authority on healthcare, he provides profound insight into designing for global trends, patient groups, and clinical provision – informing key decisions throughout the architectural process.
He has worked on numerous healthcare projects, has been elected as a World Architecture Jury member, and is also a university lecturer/examiner, and a speaker at international conferences. He has worked extensively with the NHS, contributing to Health Building Notes, Health Technical Memoranda, and the service’s ‘Therapeutic Environment’ website features entitled ‘Sight Sensitive Design’ and ‘Sound Sensitive Design’.
A founder and champion of IBI TH!NK – the practice’s in-house research and development group – he is an advocate of evidence-based
choreograph, and calibrate, our individual sense-sensitive environments.
‘Calming and energising’ spaces Ideally homes should provide spaces that can deliver calming and energising environments. ‘Snoezelen’, developed in the Netherlands in the 1970s, or controlled multisensory environments (MSEs), are designed to deliver stimuli to the respective senses using light effects, colour, sound, music, scents, and combinations of fabrics and finishes, to engage the tactile senses. Domestic living rooms, bedrooms, or spare spaces, can be equipped with modest equipment and ‘staged’ to provide such multisensory or single sensory focus.
Alternative calming and energising spaces can be created. Relaxing environments can be established to calm and reduce agitation – by using dimmed, warm spectral light, temperature adjustment, soothing soundscapes, and relaxing scent emitters, etc. On the other hand, an energising ambience can stimulate by increasing blue spectral light, dynamic visuals, ‘up-tempo’ soundscapes, and invigorating seascape smells. Such spaces can usefully extend into the external garden, benefitting from sunlight, and filtered, oxygen-enriched quality air. To deliver such choreography one can easily source multisensory products and equipment online from manufacturers/ suppliers such as Rompa, Rino Sensory, Experia, and Sensory Direct.
Induced ‘happy hormones’ Hormones, neurochemicals, and neurotransmitters, are generated in our brains, and moderate our feelings daily. They are responsible for creating the sensations and emotions of happiness. There are up to 10 hormones classified as ‘Happy Hormones’, the most well-known ones being the endorphins, serotonin,
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design in ‘creating innovations that positively impact the psychology and physiology of patient groups’.
His successful ‘pioneering’ of Sense Sensitive Design, Emotional Mapping, and the Design Prescription, are a few of the design tools that have led him on to co-authoring new NHS guidelines for ‘Evidence-based Design Healthcare Environments’.
Richard Mazuch is also a product designer, who works with manufacturers and international industry partners, advising on and collaborating in the development of new materials and products such as the ‘Med Bedhead’, ‘Sensory Door’, and the ‘BedPod’, to support and improve patient care. In healthcare planning he has successfully developed the ‘Cruciform Ward’ – now a national standard.
He has frequently worked in expert/ reference groups for the King’s Fund, Prince’s Foundation, the Design Council, Parliamentary groups, and the Government Treasury Task Force, helping to develop new healthcare strategies and guidelines.
dopamine, and oxytocin. So, how can we usefully trigger and activate these to good effect? Endorphins, for example, are opioid neuropeptides induced by exercising. In one study, as little as 30 minutes’ walking on a treadmill daily for 10 days significantly reduced depression among clinically depressed subjects. Laughter, scents/aromas, and spicy food, also all trigger endorphin release. Serotonin is the best-known ‘happiness chemical’, because it is the one antidepressant medication primarily addresses. It is triggered by exposure to sunlight, exercise, and generally happy thoughts. Tryptophan-heavy foods may assist too in boosting mood and helping focus. Dopamine is known as the ‘chemical of reward’. When one ‘hits’ a target or fulfils a task, a pleasurable hit is released. Volunteering and performing, and imagining acts of kindness, induce the same feelings.
Oxytocin is primarily associated with the haptic sense of touch and empathy. It is related to the comforting physical touch and close relationships. Dialogue with pets, such as cats and dogs, can achieve the same result. Mothers produce this hormone in abundance during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Conclusions
As we enter the Third Era of Health, we have very real opportunities to deliver optimal neuro-supportive environments
Domestic living rooms, bedrooms, or spare spaces, can be equipped with modest equipment and ‘staged’ to provide such multisensory or single sensory focus
embedded in the homes of tomorrow. There is a clear need to reimagine and innovate. Let us find new ways to inform and empower residents to actively choreograph their respective domestic spaces to address neurodiversity within the growing percentile of multi-generational homes. Issues ranging from SAD to migraines, bipolar depression to work- related stress, anxiety to depression, and sleep deprivation to pre-/post-natal depression, can now begin to be addressed before deteriorating and becoming an ever-escalating mental health statistic. This year the Government committed to delivering 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s. There are also numerous recent initiatives and directives addressing the need for healthy homes, including NHS England’s ‘Healthy New Towns’, the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) White Paper – Healthy Homes and Buildings, and the Agile Ageing Alliance’s White Paper, Neighbourhoods of the Future. This creates a real opportunity to embrace the issues and set new design parameters to address both mental health and physical wellbeing in the home.
A clear understanding of
multigenerational, neurodiversity, ageing process, body/mind profile, physiology, and respective sensory-related responses and sensitivities, and a better
comprehension of mental health issues, will clearly inform the design of tomorrow’s salutogenic home, and, ultimately, help staunch the daily increase in people suffering with mental ill health.
References: 1 UK faces £94 billion mental health bill. PublicFinance, 23 November 2018.
2 Lack of sleep costing UK economy up to £40 billion a year. Rand Europe, 29 November 2016.
3 The less I am coping, the worse I seem to sleep. Mind, 2016.
https://tinyurl.com/y6xmz8pa
OCTOBER 2019 | THE NETWORK
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