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Respect, equity, democratic spaces, are the most cited words by people when asked how they could explain Urban Dignity in simple words. However, segregation, violence, insecurity, pollution, housing deficit and sanitation are some of the most cited words that comes out from first year architecture and urban planning graduate students when they are asked about our city constraints. Those urban issues get intensified in subnormal cluster areas, and challenges the academy in the housing design process when addressing Urban Dignity to those students. This paper presents the results of a design thinking process exercise for an informal community with housing needs. It considered the emotional space concept as a method to find the common grounds where individuals find comfort, safety, and joy. A brainstorm meeting with the community and field visits were used as a strategy to capture some of the essence of locals. The challenge to understand and capture their individual and personal feelings regarding their own comfortable zones and address them into a common scenario remained the main struggle of this project. Most of those people had never had a house with steady structure and infrastructure to live in. Therefore, an intense inside discussion among the design responsible people involved in the project, focused on translating their own perception of local's feelings towards neighbors, of local’s belongings and behaviors to define the design program needs. As a result, the sense of place, open ungated buildings with three floors max, a common recreational central area, the use of construction materials familiar and available in the field, and reserved areas located on first floor were some of the main characteristics drawn to the area. This approach guaranteed to host locals’ activities and accommodate changes needed in their course of lives as some of the characteristics found essential to welcome the community of about 80 families in a place where they could call home.
Objective: This best-practice example shows the positive effect on the behavior of a mentally disabled client with significant behavioral problems after the custom-made change in his built environment. Background: Healthcare organizations are often faced with the difficulty of creating a built environment that has a positive effect on the mental well-being of the users. Ipse de Bruggen is a healthcare organization that offers care and support for the mentally handicapped. They look after clients who need additional individual support due to their behavioral problems and have developed new care concepts for this over the years. With regard to the built environment, however, they found in individual cases that the living environment does not suit the client. The rooms are bare and devoid of atmosphere. It seems that in many cases this has led to even more aggression and destruction. A negative spiral. The organization saw the need to change this and in 2011 commissioned Andrea Möhn Architects, formerly Möhn + Bouman Architects, to examine the built environment and the needs of individual users with major behavioral problems. Methods: The findings are based on the architects’ many years of experience with regard to the target group, a precise observation of the behavior of the user in his personal space as well as interviews with the staff from November 2011 to April 2012. Results: Based on the observations the architects created a tailor-made environment that had a very positive effect on the behavior of the user and thus also on his family, the care staff and the organization. Conclusions: The best practice example shows that for clients with severe behavioral problems a personalized and humanized approach seemed to be the right approach, rather than a flexible spatial solution. The redesigned space gave the client a sense of control, pride, dignity and a sense of well-being. Inspired by this success, the organization started the project "Physical environment, a fixed value in our care” in 2020. Within four years, twelve rooms will be redesigned and their effects on users will be scientifically researched.
Emotional spaces
(2021)
Taking into account that architects have a pronounced influence on humans’ lives, it is their responsibility to design and build livable environments. For this, there is another crucial dimension that shapes the individual understanding of space in a way that has not yet been taken into account. This paper looks at living environments and their meaning for individual life and well-being. It introduces a theoretical background that sets its focus on buildings and exterior spaces and presents a different point of view. Here the theory of Emotional Spaces is introduced, referring to a connection between space and feelings and considering that it is not enough to plan buildings and open spaces merely with architectural qualities in mind. This paper presents a different understanding of space and proposes a new approach to the design process. It is based on a design concept that places people and all their needs in the center. In order to be able to design and plan architectural spaces according to the needs of human beings, it seems necessary to understand the individual, everyday life. The challenge is to understand the individual life story, which should then be put into a spatial context. From these insights, Emotional Spaces that are relevant for „good and successful” living can become visible.