Jason Danziger will serve as co-chair together with psychiatrist and PSYCH.RAUM partner Dr. Martin Voss of the Charité/Berlin (SHK-Soteria) for an interdisciplinary workshop titled, “Architecture and Psychiatry - Spatial Mechanisms that promote Social Cohesion” at the 31st European Congress of Psychiatry (EPA) confrence at the Palais des Congrès de Paris on March 27, 2023. The workshop is a joint production together with architects Dr. Julia Kirch of sander.hofrichter architekten (Ludwigshafen, DE), Ross Warren of hoopers architects (Ipswich, UK), and psychiatrist Dr. Nikolina Jovanović of Queen Mary University of London and the East London Foundation Trust. It will focus on the potential of the built environment to promote social interaction and cohesion in psychiatric facilities. More information is availaible on the EPA website here (search for WP08) or here.
The EPA 2023 Logo, superimposed on a photograph of the Eiffel Tower under construction in 1888 taken by Louis-Emile Durandelle.
Here a couple photos from the workshop. First, our interdisciplinary team (from left) Ross Warren, Dr. Nikolina Jovanović, Dr. Julia Kirch, Dr. Martin Voss, and Jason Danziger.
One of the questions we asked the audience during the workshop was, “What topics should architects address in order to improve mental health care?” Using mentimeter, we were able to view an “instant” word cloud which collected the responses of the roughly 100 psychiatrists and others who attended our session at the 2023 EPA Congress. Clearly, there is more work to be done to better allow therapists as well as service users and patients to positively influence healing environments. We would like to explore the topic further as a group, hopefully in the format of offering a follow-up Continuing Medical Education (CME) workshop for the EPA 2024 Congress in Budapest. Stay tuned for more information!
