Mental Health Awareness: The First Step of Our Journey

I work in downtown Los Angeles, where I am reminded of our city’s mental health crisis each time I drive by Skid Row. At more than 4,400, the neighborhood contains the nation’s largest unhoused population, and its streets are filled with people who are deeply impacted by either mental health challenges or drug addiction, or a combination of the two. Beyond this downtown enclave and elsewhere in the country, adults, teens, and children struggle with depression, trauma, substance-use, violence, poverty, and sexual and physical abuse at a growing rate. Left unchecked, these destructive cycles can ruin lives, but holistic community support around mental and behavioral healthcare, education, housing, and job training can stop that spiral.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, yet being aware of these systemic challenges is only the first step. We need to work collaboratively with counties, healthcare systems, and behavioral health professionals to create lasting and impactful design solutions. Perkins Eastman’s healthcare team works both regionally across Southern California and across the United States to create facilities that address the entire care spectrum. Every individual’s journey toward healing is unique, yet they all need to feel safe, secure, dignified, and accepted along that path.

Our work ranges from mental health outpatient clinics and urgent care to substance-use disorder recovery centers, recuperative care centers, and crisis stabilization units. We also design for the more serious levels of inpatient care such as acute psychiatric hospitals, psychiatric-health facilities, and mental-health rehabilitation centers. This full continuum-of-care approach tailors each facility to specific levels of treatment that align with our clients’ goals to provide compassionate services to treat the whole person. We achieve these patient-centered environments through strategic design solutions and medical planning, creating spaces to meet diverse patient needs.

Currently, we are working with Los Angeles County to program and plan a Restorative Care Village on the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center campus. It is designed to serve as a home away from home, with a village-like healing environment and plentiful outdoor access. The daylight-infused buildings will offer both inpatient residential units and outpatient clinics.

The new Restorative Care Village at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center campus is being designed as a sanctuary of holistic mental healthcare. Preliminary Concept Rendering © Perkins Eastman

Similarly, in San Bernadino County, our team is designing the Pacific Village Platinum Campus for the Department of Aging and Adult Services, which will include a recuperative care center, substance-use recovery center, housing units for Community Development Housing, and permanent supportive housing for the Department of Aging and Adult Services. The county’s goal is to provide comprehensive assistance that will integrate its most vulnerable residents back into society.

The Pacific Village Platinum Campus includes a community center, above, that bridges indoor and outdoor environments to fulfill the client’s vision for a nurturing community.
Preliminary Concept Rendering © Perkins Eastman

These projects follow the Riverside County Crisis Services Facility, where we designed a new campus of three home-like, Craftsman-style buildings. It includes landscaped gardens, a courtyard, and a meditation porch for quiet reflection.

The three buildings that comprise the Riverside County Crisis Services Facility are designed around landscaping and walking trails. Photo by Sarah Mechling © Perkins Eastman

Our team is also skilled at planning and programming older non-compliant healthcare facilities to better serve their communities. We prepared the scoping documents to transform the long-vacant Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital in Los Angeles’ underserved Watts neighborhood into a comprehensive behavioral health center that provides integrated outpatient and supportive services. It’s the first facility of its kind to consolidate services under one roof to serve those struggling with mental illness and related substance-use disorders and homelessness, and to provide job training for those on court-ordered probation.

The Mark Ridley-Thomas Behavioral Health Center revitalizes the abandoned Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital into a social services and behavioral-health hub. Photo Courtesy Perkins Eastman

We have leveraged our teams’ 20 years of experience designing and planning behavioral health facilities for each of these projects. Our designs emphasize safety and security, intuitive navigation, abundant natural light, and the integration of nature, including outdoor therapy spaces to reduce anxiety and promote healing and respite. Strategically planning with our clients allows us to provide adaptable spaces that foster respect, resilience, and recovery.

Our team conducts extensive research and data gathering to prioritize and maximize safety, security, privacy, and well-being. Once the facility is open and running, we conduct post-occupancy evaluations that continually help us hone and improve upon our work. More importantly, we are passionate about educating our clients on the importance of designing nature-centric therapeutic environments that are warm, welcoming, and safe. We are dedicated to erasing the stigma of behavioral health facilities as cold, institutional monoliths by continuing to work with our clients as they rethink how the built environment can help and heal.