Balancing security with a therapeutic environment

A ‘champion of mental health-informed design’, associate director at HLM Architects, Neil Orpwood, reflects on insights from the DiMH 2024 Conference, where he chaired a session exploring the balance between local and specialist mental healthcare services. Drawing on two contrasting recent mental healthcare projects – Kimmeridge Court and Aspen Wood, he stresses the need for thoughtful, holistic approaches in such environments – balancing security with therapeutic elements, and aligning with the DiMHN’s principles of Design With People in Mind.

Last June's DiMH 2024 Conference in Manchester included a packed programme across the event's two days. As a Design in Mental Health Network Associate, I was lucky enough to be able to chair a very interesting session on day 1, with two excellent but very different schemes that highlighted an important element of mental health service provision — the balance of local provision versus specialist bespoke services far from home. The session focused on the gaps and synergies between mental health, physical health, and designing for stressful environments. Regularly contributing to policy document reviews, and specifically providing input to the ProCure framework repeatable rooms initiative, on mental health bedroom design, I'm an avid champion of the power that the built environment has to heal.

I'm passionate about the NHS and what it can achieve. A key driving factor in the delivery of projects is the need to look at the bigger picture; reviewing every scheme holistically, focusing on the wider determinants of health, wellbeing, and working environments, as well as
the importance of the impact of the
built environment on healing in acute treatment care.