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Extending Care
Exploring prolonged recovery and prevetative actions in the Danish mental health care strategy
Navn
Viktoria Daae
Uddannelsesgrad
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Arkitektur
Institut
Bygningskunst, By og Landskab
Program
Urbanism and Societal Change
År
2023
The mental health crisis is increasing mortality rates and contributing to years lived with disability and economic loss. The Danish psychiatry is crowded and depend on a diagnosis hierarchy that determine admissions and discharge. This project is exploring prolonged recovery and public preventative actions in the urban scale to improve the existing psychiatric strategy in Denmark.
The selected site for this pilot-project is the Greenland Quarter in Aalborg which lies between the inner city and the new super-hospital area. The Greenland Quarter is the second largest neighborhood in Aalborg and is a few percent away from ending back on the "No parallel society list", where they were back in 2016.
This project explores a possible new mental health care facility called The Remedy House, which will be a private/public space for mental health, specifically for previous psychiatric patients so they have a place to land after the institution. Surrounded by the healing element of nature, the building is split into zones of public and private programs which will help to give a transparency and strengthen the relation between social interactions and nature.
The Remedy House is connected to a public strategy consisting of garden initiatives and exercise routes through the city of Aalborg. The program has a main hub in the inner city called the Livingroom, located around the corner from a supported youth housing area. The Livingroom is to be a community space for everyone and a health hub of information about the Remedy House and Recovery School program, where you have a chance to become a mentor and staff for the Remedy House. The city -wide stratgy will also be connected to the digital world of recovery as the user group of the Remedy House will target 0-29 year olds.
The mental health crisis is currently affecting 1 billion people, so 1 in 7 people have had experience with bad mental health in one way or another. The crisis is estimated to cost the world almost $16 trillion by year 2030.
Denmark is the country in Europe spending the most cost on mental healthcare where Major Depression disorder has the greater impact in the overall psychiatric services. This project explores the possibilities for improvement in prolonged recovery and preventative care - based on the number of readmissions into the psychiatry within the seven days after discharge.
The mental health crisis
The Super-hospital programme, relocation of care
The Super-hospital programme is another Danish approach to healthcare. The strategy is merging smaller hospitals and clinics over the country into 7 large super-hospitals and in Aalborg - this means a relocation of the care landscape, almost 7km away from the inner city.
Plan and section - The Remedy House, recovery school and library
The Remedy House is split into public - private functions with a library and café in the front with the therapy wing offering support to the community. As well as private rooms for therapy and conversation, there is also a lecture hall which can be used as a flexible space on the side of being a recovery school for next of kin and previous patients.
The greenhouse is a barrier between public and private which is supplied with collected rainwater from the designed roof construction. In the private section, there is housing for 16 residents, previous psychiatric patients.
Visual context
The Remedy House 1:200
The Path of Care is connected to the Remedy House, Recovery School, and the Livingroom in the inner city. The path is combined with the projects program as well as being a strategy for public care and prevention of bad mental health. The Path of Care visions to strengthen the community health and the Danish recovery sector - filled with activities that is supposed to function as a preventative treatment such as nature, exercise, and social interaction.
The Path of Care
As well as being a part of the public preventative activities, the Path of Care is also accessible in the digital world of recovery. With the Care Package you may find information about your mental health and a guide to transportation, social interaction, and mental fitness exercises.
Digital recovery - Care package
The super-hospital program is merging the existing hospitals North and South, and relocating the care landscape in Aalborg. The result is re-programming of the structure, which makes possibilities for material collection and reuse. Hospital North is being partly demolished and transformed into a new housing district - this projects vision is to reuse and collect the materials from the old characteristic hospital and continue the materials life cycle in a new care facility.
Materiality
The Remedy House - material section 1:20
The Remedy House in model
Niches
Det Kongelige Akademi understøtter FN’s verdensmål
Siden 2017 har Det Kongelige Akademi arbejdet med FN’s verdensmål. Det afspejler sig i forskning, undervisning og afgangsprojekter. Dette projekt har forholdt sig til følgende FN-mål
