This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Redevelopment Schemes


Bringing St Bernard’s into the 21st century


Juliet Erridge, an associate director at David Morley Architects, describes the context and background to the practice’s work to bring St Bernard’s Hospital, a low secure unit in Ealing which was originally the first purpose-built asylum to be completed in England and Wales, ‘into the 21st century’ for the West London Mental Health NHS Trust. She spoke about the redevelopment of the new medium secure campus at May’s Design in Mental Health 2015 conference with Barbara Wood, the Trust’s redevelopment programme manager (Service and Business Change).


Designing facilities for people with mental health problems offers significant opportunities to create settings that help reduce the stigma attached to mental illness and give people hope. At David Morley Architects we use our skill and expertise from other sectors to enrich our healthcare work via the use of natural light, sustainable design, and the design of new buildings in historic environments. This article describes the context of our work to bring St Bernard’s Hospital into the 21st century.


PARITY OF PROVISION – PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTHCARE The cross-government strategy document, No health without mental health,1 states that mental health must have equal priority with physical health. The reality is that mental healthcare is so often the ‘poor relation’. This is not really surprising when you realise that the


idea of recovery, and the concept of treatment for mental health problems, are comparatively new.


As a society we have made changes for the better in our attitudes to disability. Many positive changes have been made to the built environment to promote inclusion for those with disabilities, although there is still much that should be improved. About one in six adults of working age are affected by disability. This is similar to the proportion of the population at any one time with mental health problems. A corresponding change is needed in society’s attitude to mental illness, as has occurred with disability. There is still a stigma attached to mental health; people do not readily admit to mental health problems. The portrayal of mental illness in the arts and in artistic communities helps to raise awareness. Many will have read the award-winning first


novel, Elizabeth is Missing, by Emma Healey, or seen the recently released Oscar- winning film, Still Alice, both of which are about people suffering from dementia.


BROADENING UNDERSTANDING So what impact does this have on those involved in design in mental health? Many of us will have first-hand experience of the reality of mental health problems, but every person and problem is unique, and so examples such as the aforementioned film and book broaden our understanding, and help us to approach our work with greater humanity.


In 1808 the County Asylum Act was published. This was a key document as, using the terminology of the time, it recognised insanity as an illness; ‘lunatics’, provided that they were not held in the wrong institutions, and were given the right type of treatment, had a chance to recover.


It was in this context that St Bernard’s Hospital in Ealing was founded, in 1831, at the time as the Middlesex County Asylum in Hanwell, built for the pauper insane. Just as now, politics impacted on care in Victorian times. The construction of asylums was paid for from local rates, whereas the cost of imprisonment was charged to the parish of birth. Non-recovery would mean insane paupers needing to be looked after for the rest of their life, which would cost more in the long run. The building of asylums was primarily a humane measure, but it was a cost-saving one too.


REPEATABLE ROOMS


St Bernard’s Hospital was the first purpose-built asylum in England and Wales, and was built in a neoclassical style with panoptican towers. This was an architectural form invented by the philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, in the late eighteenth century. The concept was developed for institutions of all types (such as hospitals, prisons, and asylums) to allow observation from a single location in a number of different


‘The concept was developed for institutions of all types (such as hospitals, prisons, and asylums) to allow observation from a single location in a number of different directions’


18


An aerial view of the proposed redevelopment scheme. THE NETWORK


J u l y 2 0 1 5


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32