I was recently part of a process which considered how we might think about design of residential buildings for child and adolescent mental health services.
The purpose of the exercise was to look at the issues and tensions that form the brief that drive decisions that become buildings. Efficiency of service delivery was put forward as a key issue; each room should be within easy reach of and supervision by the nursing station.
The key to any brief is to give yourself space for the best start. Where do you start thinking about this kind of building? Do you start with the materials, with the plan, with the efficiencies, the costs, the details, the construction, the staff needs, the servicing and service delivery? One person pondered the question. There was a delay. He suggested that to understand this building, whatever form it eventually takes, you have to start with understanding children. What is it like to be a child?
To be a child is to be full of the vitality of experience of the now. It is to be curious, to shape your environment, to create dens, to hide, to fall, to live, to love and to learn, about yourself, and others. This is true regardless of whether you are able bodied or disabled. If we start from here, we might think of different spaces, of nooks and crannies, of hiding places and celebratory spaces, of solemn spaces and public spaces, of mess and order, of independence and shelter.
None of this happens where efficiency and standardisation is our only driver. Efficiency without love creates the conditions for loneliness and isolation. This a form of robbery of the right to be a child. In the long term, it robs the person of the capacity to be, and to flourish. In the long term, this is a public cost.
The Business Birthrate Enquiry in Scotland a number of years ago looked at the rate of new business formation, start ups. It was identified that both the rate of business start up and scaling of existing businesses were poor. Why? Was it to do with the business planning, the cashflow analysis, the taxation experience, the logos, business cards or overheads of the business? No. The key causes of failure were negativity, loneliness and isolation. Lack of contact, lack of empathy, lack of space to try, to fail and be supported made it impossible for some to take that chance and succeed. They couldn’t prosper.
I sometimes see young people with intelligence and capability, with the capacity to be something great fall into an abyss because of loneliness and isolation. This is not a nice experience. One trajectory could be a series of interactions with institutions, all public costs. What is needed is a little love.
So here is the point: how do you factor love into the brief for what we do? It is a serious question. Not only does it seem to build the conditions for people to prosper, it also seems to save public money over the long term.