Chrysikou, E; (2020) A tale of two Countries: Comparing France and the UK to understand the elements of Psychosocially supportive design. In: Hospital 21: Breathing New Life in the 21st Century Hospital. (pp. pp. 343-352). Tesis - University of Florence: Florence, Italy.

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Abstract

For those conditions that medicine cannot provide a cure yet, non-pharmacological elements of care prove key. The built-environment comprises part of a psychosocially supportive regime. For psychiatry, both diagnostic and interventional accuracy prove challenging. This lack of effective therapeutic approaches resulted in interventional pluralism. The research explored the context of mental healthcare provision, emphasising on the building stock to identify common elements of psychosocially supportive environments. France and the UK, each adopting different models regarding hospitalization, provided the research locus. The case studies were ten facilities catering for the acute spectrum of diagnosis, yet still in the community. Data collection comprised plans and photographic record of the buildings, together with field notes and data from 115 semi-structured interviews of staff and patients. Field notes produced an architectural checklist of 215 points, analyzing each building to its institutional vs domestic traits. Architectural data where juxtaposed to interview data. One key finding was that the then dominant theory of normalization could not necessarily provide facilities that staff and users considered therapeutic. The second phase of the research explores facilities for their spatial morphology. Two new case studies were selected in the most acute end of the spectrum of community care, both in the UK. The initial methodology was retained but with the addition of Space Syntax. Results indicate that although countries differed, some elements retained global value, such as the importance of user involvement. Also, universal architectural methodologies, such as space syntax are not directly applicable to acute psychiatric environments evaluation. This combined to the uncertainty of psychiatric treatment, indicates that mental health is an area where considerable amount of research is required. Yet, despite practical difficulties of cross-border studies, involving more geographical contexts proves a very good starting point to increase a deeper understanding of the phenomena of psychiatric space.

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