Designing better mental healthcare facilities

‘Homestead formation’ for new rural Omagh facility

With its height, whitewashed walls, slate-clad appearance, and rural setting, combining to lend it a homely, domestic feel, at first glance the new Rathview Mental Health Facility in Omagh is perhaps not what you would expect.

“In fact,” say its architects, Todd Architects, “it would be hard to know it was a healthcare building.” Rathview, completed in April this year for the Western Health and Social Care Trust by P&K McKaigue, was carefully designed ‘to break down traditional, preconceived ideas of mental health facilities, offering a fresh, residential approach in a peaceful countryside setting’. Situated in a rural greenfield site on Omagh’s outskirts, the £2.8 m facility contains a 12-bed Discharge Unit and a six-bed Recovery Unit, and is designed to increase the range of communitybased mental health service available locally. 

Project architect, Liam Lennon, said: “Rathview takes its name from a nearby ‘Rath’ or ringfort – an ancient Irish chieftain’s residence. Our design approach maintains a dialogue with local history, and reflects a contemporary take on the traditional Ulster ‘Clachan’ – a homestead formation in today’s terms.” 

Todd’s shallow one-storey plan places all habitable rooms on external walls, facing either directly out to the surrounding countryside, or onto an internal courtyard, maximising natural light and views of a calm external environment. The medium-stay Discharge Unit focuses on rebuilding residents’ confidence and independence by providing a domestic environment, with autonomous access to their accommodation. Twelve individual one-person apartments are laid out around a central courtyard, with two activity social spaces and a training kitchen. 

The Recovery Unit offers short-term care, with the en-suiterooms designed ‘to balance privacy with essential observation and access’. Sensitively arranged around a fully enclosed courtyard, the unit includes staff accommodation and communal areas. 

 

 

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