Designing a Mental Health Center to Replace a County Hospital

An architectural team worked closely with a county building committee and the administrative staff of a Wisconsin county hospital to design a new active-treatment facility. The goals included changing the hospital's negative image in the community, fostering a close relationship between all programs and all groups of users, and encouraging inpatients to make the best possible use of various treatment areas. Planning was interrupted by a community-wide controversy over the location, and the facility was eventually built on a compromise site. The new facility, a community mental health center serving two counties, has an open, splitlevel design accommodating six inpatient programs and a day hospital. An informal evaluation of the environment was made a year after the center was occupied.