Therapeutic placemaking as a pathway to improved public health: realising our health and care centres of the future

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

'Good design' for health and care, and the development of industry and public sector skills to support such improvements in infrastructure, will be key if the devolved governments of the UK are to address the challenges brought about by an ageing society, and the need for clean growth. The aim of this research is to examine and advance an interdisciplinary design innovation piloted by a West of Scotland Health Board NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) over a sustained period of building modernisation that identifies lessons of immediate regional relevance, and for wider future application in other UK regions. 'Therapeutic placemaking' is a bespoke Arts and Health strategy that supports facility functionality through novel design features (including interactive way finding, personalising patient dignity, and positive distraction installations) and promotes wellbeing by bringing a cultural dimension into the healthcare environment. The innovation is delivered by a public artist working at the interface of a built environment team, the health service, local communities, and local authority partners, to develop generative placemaking concepts that will inspire the design of a new-build NHS project. The Fellowship's programme of research will take place in the post-industrial town of Clydebank, where the development of a new NHSGGC primary care facility is being envisioned as the catalyst for wider processes of urban renewal. Efforts at local regeneration programs have so far struggled to identify solutions to the complex and compounded legacies of industrial decline, including the deterioration of public health, wellbeing and the local environment. Research leadership is required to ask if another approach is possible, and evaluate its effectiveness. Partnering with NHSGGC, Architecture and Design Scotland, and three local authority departments (West Dunbartonshire Health and Social Care Partnership, West Dunbartonshire Libraries and Museums, and West Dunbartonshire Planning and Building), the Fellowship will develop a practice-led therapeutic placemaking approach for the new facility (Clydebank Health and Care Centre), and then evaluate its impact on service-users, service providers and the wider community upon its opening in September 2020. Through the collaborative and iterative development of such an approach, this project will advance research around critical and creative placemaking in the fields of feminist urban studies, arts and health, and heritage futures.The Fellowship will enable innovative and collaborative research leadership in regional efforts to improve infrastructures and facilities for health provision in NHS Greater Glasgow. It will embed a 'therapeutic placemaking' approach in the health, public and education sectors, and the architecture and design industry. Additionally, it will engage local community representatives in knowledge exchange, and consultative and evaluative processes around the application of novel therapeutic placemaking interventions. Concentrated Fellowship actions at the local-authority level will scale up through research outcomes and skill-sharing, making research Leadership an asset in UK-wide industry settings and regional public sectors. Transferable innovations and insights will be shared via national Arts and Health and design programs, generating improved industrial capacity to deliver renewed spaces of health and care that are health and place improving for our ageing society.