How Design Shapes our Psychological Response to Space

Imagine you’re in a building of stark white walls, worn linoleum flooring, and little natural light - harsh lights glare down on you. A lingering sense of cold detachment suffocates the air. 

Imagine how you’d feel.

Likely not very cheerful or welcomed. Maybe lacklustre, stressed, or even trapped.

And yet, for decades, mental health facilities, places built to make people feel better, have been associated with these clinical, institutional environments. 

Luckily, society is reshaping its understanding and reducing stigma in mental health care. But it’s clear that our spaces need to continue to evolve, be inclusive and prioritise recovery focused design. Designs should welcome service users, promote healing, foster therapeutic relationships with peers and care staff and enable the journey toward mental wellness.

The transformation is more than just aesthetics. By using design to create inclusive mental health spaces, we continue to tackle stereotypes and reduce unhealthy power dynamics. Innovative designs, particularly products that increase safety, enabling service users to be able to have more autonomy and agency can help reduce stigmatisation, making quality care accessible and welcoming to all, thus placing the main focus on recovery.

From institutional to inclusive design

Historically, mental health facilities were designed with a heavy focus on security and containment, creating spaces that felt more restrictive than restorative. The very architecture of these facilities played into society's misunderstanding of mental ill health. Many service users felt marginalised and constrained, while families and friends were met with environments that reinforced the stigmas they feared.

Philip Ross and Martin Izod our Co-Founders, felt this first-hand when one of their friends got detained under the Mental Health Act in a secure facility, and shared: “We walked along this huge corridor in the general hospital, the mental health ward was in the far corner (out of sight, out of mind?), and by the time we reached his bedroom, our own sense of self had been distorted, somehow feeling like we were in a movie. Reaching our friend’s bedroom, he would complain that he couldn’t sleep because of the bedroom door leaking light, prolonging his sleep deprivation. The very place meant to support his recovery was actually holding him back."

Good mental health facility design can and should do so much more. Design isn’t just about function, it affects how we think and feel. Great design can inspire, motivate and create hope for tomorrow. Colours, textures, shapes, sounds and lighting all improve the design of mental health facilities, and key features like mental health doors can either positively complement the aesthetics of these environments or sometimes reinforce the institutional feel.

Accessibility in mental health care extends beyond physical needs. Design can help create spaces where people of all backgrounds can feel safe and respected, which is essential for ensuring people can focus on recovery or stabilisation from their mental distress, not just learning to cope with an unfamiliar space. 

Some communities will feel greater stigma in engaging with mental health services, and the impact of inclusive design is particularly crucial. Facilities designed to feel safe, welcoming, and supportive encourage more individuals, supported by their carers, to access care without fear of being labelled or judged. 

This transformation of spaces from institutional to more inclusive shows that mental health facilities can be places of hope and healing, bridging social divides and meeting people where they are.  We’re by no means at the finish line, but modern spaces have made significant improvements.

Choosing products that destigmatise mental health spaces 

Now imagine you’re in a bright and open space. Soft edges, furnishings, and natural materials complement calm colours, and large windows bathe the rooms in sunlight (well, we can’t guarantee sun, but you get the idea).

Put yourself in the shoes of a service user walking into a mental health facility for the first time. Instead of an imposing clinical atmosphere, they’re met with this environment. Naturally, they will feel more at ease in a well-designed aesthetic space than a cold institutional centre.  Their behaviours will be positively affected too.

Of course, all the necessary safety precautions are in place. Safehinge Primera’s solutions, such as anti-barricade and ligature-resistant products, allow facilities to enhance service user safety whilst fostering service user autonomy and aesthetics that focus on soft timber or soothing pastel colours whilst concealing screw fixings and metal finishes. This choice to integrate safety discreetly shifts the perception from control to care.

Imagine the impact good design can have on how communities see mental health spaces. 

By creating less clinical environments, we can normalise mental health facilities for service users and their friends and family who might be visiting, making them feel much more approachable. In this way, inclusive design shows people of all ages and backgrounds that these spaces are here for them, and they are here for healing, not judgment.

This reduction in stigma through design has real implications for accessibility, particularly for individuals from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds who may experience additional obstacles to care. If the environment feels warm and welcoming rather than sterile and clinical, it can ease apprehensions, encouraging people to step through those doors.

Design supports community perceptions and accessibility

At Safehinge Primera, we’ve worked with numerous organisations that understand the value of design in mental health facilities. These improvements increase community perceptions of mental health care, making it easier for facilities to gain public and private mental health facility funding.

 The Junipers PICU (Devon)

• The Junipers chose to install our entire door set range to promote people-centred mental health design in their facility.
  
  
• Our anti-barricade bedroom doors give service users the freedom to secure their own doors but allow staff to gain emergency access if required.
  
  
• The relaxing aquamarine door colour blends with timber beading and hinge to help create a therapeutic environment design.
  
  
• En-suite detachable bathroom doors are also fitted, removing ligature risk but ensuring service user privacy. With decor options of a beach scene or green leaves to create a personalised feel.
  
  
• The re-design improves service users' and their families' experiences and has positively influenced the wider community’s perception of mental health care.

 Creating hope through art

• We hosted a webinar with Hospital Rooms, a charity committed to transforming behavioural spaces through art, exploring the effect of art on service user recovery.
  
  
• Attendees submitted their designs for our ligature-resistant bathroom doors and we were thrilled to add Yukako Shibata’s stunning art to our other room designs.
  
  
• This helped encourage community engagement, normalise mental health spaces, and promote inclusivity.

Image courtesy of Hospital Rooms

 The Network magazine

• Safehinge Primera was featured in The Network magazine, discussing the importance of good design in mental health environments and why safety doesn’t have to be institutional.
  
  
• Thoughtful design supports immediate service user safety and longer-term outcomes in mental health care. Younger service users respond particularly well to spaces that balance safety and a therapeutic atmosphere.
  
  
• Our anti-ligature products for safety are part of a larger framework for change. Facilities that look like places of care, not confinement, help young service users and their families feel more comfortable and supported.

Design increases policy support and funding

It’s no secret that the NHS is under financial stress. Experts say it has been “starved of capital” and because of this, it’s falling behind.  This is especially the case in mental health services, including the revised timeline for the New Hospital Programme - extended with some projects not starting until 2039, and the new list didn’t include any mental health hospitals.

So the idea of renovating existing buildings to create more therapeutic spaces is daunting in the NHS due to these funding limitations. At Safehinge Primera, we understand the restrictions of the UK healthcare system and design our products to work around them.

By creating adaptable anti-ligature solutions, we can retrofit existing structures, ensuring that safety, accessibility, and aesthetic improvements are achievable within financial constraints. This consideration for practical, budget-conscious design is critical.

As well as benefitting service users, innovative mental health solutions also attract the attention of policymakers, C-suite, and mental health advocates. Safehinge Primera’s commitment to creating human-centred, safe mental health facilities that support clinicians by creating more time to care demonstrates how effective design can be a catalyst for investment. 

The more facilities that take on these people-centred design initiatives, the more momentum builds for comprehensive mental health reform. The goal is to bridge the socioeconomic divide and expand access to quality care.

Institutional environments are out, and inclusive design is in. 

Reshaping mental health facility design positively impacts the lives of those who need the spaces, their families, and communities, as well as creating better workplaces for the front-line care staff. When mental health environments are welcoming and inclusive, they invite everyone to take part in the journey of sustaining recovery and stabilisation from a person’s crisis. 

Safehinge Primera’s anti-ligature solutions show the importance of design in reducing stigma in mental health facilities whilst keeping people safe. By creating spaces that inspire, comfort, and protect, we reshape the physical environment for everyone who walks through those doors. 

Need more information? 

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References:

• https://www.hsj.co.uk/finance-and-efficiency/devastating-delays-to-new-hospitals-revealed/7038527.articlehttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5534196/ 
• https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/3/e074368
• https://www.contourheating.co.uk/blog/mental-healthcare-facilities-design-key-goals-and-considerations
• https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/8730/1/Joseph_MacNeal_Crews_-_Vol._1_1999.pdf
• https://www.healthcaredm.co.uk/inpatient-unit-heralds-a-new-era-for-mental-health-design