The aging psychiatric hospital: an approach to humanistic redesign

Since funds for the construction of new treatment facilities are scarce, outmoded wards must be redesigned to meet the current needs of users. The authors feel the redesign must integrate modern therapeutic concepts, humanistic patient requirements, and pragmatic budgetary limitations. They review current theory about the effects of the physical environment on behavior, and they discuss such questions as to what extent the need for security should govern ward design and how pleasant the environment should be. They also describe a specific redesign for a 32-bed psychiatric ward of a large federal hospital constructed in the early 1950s.