Sunshine Mental Health and Wellbeing Centre

In 2020 the Victorian Government announced the Mental Health Bed Expansion Program, which will significantly expand the capacity of the State’s acute mental health services and reduce strain on Emergency Departments. After an era of systemic failings in Victoria’s Mental Health System, the system and its facilities are beginning to be redesigned to respond to consumer’s needs in a meaningful and compassionate way. Traditionally, mental health units have been organised to prioritise isolation, confinement, and surveillance. Not unlike the historic panopticon in prisons, this layout is inward facing and enclosed, with the clinical staff stationed at the centre and outdoor open space separated from the living areas. This approach to mental health care is a contributing factor to the systemic harms and social stigma that have led to the current conditions of Victoria’s Mental Health System. In our design the clinical areas are effectively inverted to an outward-facing plan that prioritises connections with the surrounding landscape and clusters bedrooms and living spaces around large internal courtyards, a reversal of the typical hospital plan. We developed concepts through a co-design process alongside clinicians, nurses, stakeholders, and people with lived experience of mental illness, balancing the requirements for privacy, amenity, and safety for all users. Bedrooms are grouped into small cohorts around a shared living space, and each is paired with a large internal courtyard. The courtyards provide natural light, air and depth of views, with high-quality landscape providing wellness benefits to consumers, staff, and families. This arrangement also reduces the need for prison-like, visible fencing elements, because the building itself acts as a secure boundary. The scale of the bedrooms was designed to enhance consumer independence and autonomy over their environment. Following feedback from consumers and mental health experts we have scaled the rooms to include ¾ beds where possible, and features like a personal storage locker, a tv, and desks. Consumers have access controls that enable them to easily manipulate their personal space, for example, the blinds and lighting. This ability to control and regulate are fundamental to a consumer’s sense of manageability of their circumstances. Restoring agency, autonomy, and a sense of independence to consumers over their wellbeing is a distinct shift from current systems that we wanted to reflect in our design. Likewise, we have redesigned the interactions of staff and consumers through our ‘collaborative hubs’ which shift from a hierarchical design between staff and patient. These provide an ‘on the floor’ service point outside of the traditional segregated staff service window. Wherever possible, we’ve used natural tones like ochre, soft eucalyptus and sky blue and timber grain finishes. These materials and colours help to deinstitutionalise the spaces, while still meeting the level of robustness required for a mental health setting. We know architecture has a psychosocial impact, affecting people’s neurological experience of a space. Whilst we understand that architecture alone cannot facilitate systemic change, it has the capacity to contribute to positive change, especially in Mental Health Facilities.