Forbo, Floor Gres and Armstrong in an acute care setting: Designer Forum

By Victoria Mohar

The construction of the new Department of Mental Health (DMH) Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital (WRCH) is the largest non-transportation project ever executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The facility is 425,000 square feet and supports the treatment and recovery of 260 adults and 60 adolescents.

It was built on the grounds of the original Worcester State Hospital, whose first buildings date back to the 1830s. The new facility is sprawling yet low and conveys a residential scale. It embraces one of the original buildings, the historical landmark Clock Tower, which is currently an administrative facility.

MoharDesign learned the most important lesson right from the beginning, when it first joined the team. The idea of designing for a psychiatric hospital could seem daunting and depressing, and the MoharDesign team wondered, is this the last stop for these people? Do they remain as permanent residents here? It turns out that this is not the case.

To create a state-of-the-art facility providing progressive treatment for patients, a team of hundreds executed the planning and design of WRCH, operating from the belief that recovery and rehabilitation back into society is possible for seriously mentally ill individuals, and that every aspect of the facility from the program to the physical design would play a role in leading patients toward the path of recovery. In fact, from day one with WRCH, the edict was that every detail of the design would unquestionably be a major contributor to the recovery of patients. The design team encompassed a large group of architects, engineers, and design consultants. Ellenzweig, the architectural firm in Cambridge and architect of record for the project, was the central conductor of the design team. A+ Architects from Troy, New York, which specializes in designing facilities for the mentally ill, brought that specific expertise to the design. MoharDesign’s role was to develop the interiors through a very specialized palette of finishes, colors and patterns that were integral to the design function and common goal of patient recovery.

The building was divided into three adult wings and two adolescent wings. Each wing included a group of private rooms, referred to as “houses,” with immediate staff spaces. The houses connected to neighborhoods, each including a dining room, outdoor porch, activity room, quiet room, consultation rooms and exam rooms. The neighborhoods culminated in the downtown area with a large-scale space two floors high that included a café, game rooms, retail shops, a bank, a library, a hair salon, fitness facilities, a gymnasium, a chapel and a music room. The premise for the design was based on recovery through emergence, where patients begin their stay within houses, eventually expanding their environment to the neighborhoods and ultimately spreading into the downtown zone.

With so many different environments, a wide variety of interior finishes were used throughout the building. The criteria for the finish materials were rigorous, due to the safety and maintenance requirements for a psychiatric facility. Ordinarily, the philosophy at Mohar-

Design for interior finishes would be to use real, honest materials such as real stone, real wood, etc. However, real materials were not practical in this environment, so the MoharDesign team relaxed its approach and used synthetic products, which simulated natural materials that were important to the scale and residential quality of some of the spaces. The safety concerns included avoiding materials that could be used by patients to harm themselves or others. For example, in the patient corridors, thin rubber cove or vinyl cove base could not be used because patients could pull it off and create dangerous objects out of it. Instead, MoharDesign used thicker profile bases with strong adhesions to make their removal impossible.

The five wings of houses with neighborhoods were each treated with their own subtle color palette, which combined several colors but avoided a hard line institutional color-coding approach. Within the houses, each patient room had a feeling of personal entry, created by paint color in the door niche and colored linoleum (Armstrong’s Marmorette) set in a mat pattern. Faux wood vinyl flooring from Forbo’s Eternal Wood heterogeneous sheet program was placed within the patient rooms, which added a warm, residential feeling. The patient corridors were lined with specially detailed handrails with no gaps or protruding material that could be harmful. The wall below the handrail was treated as a wainscot and covered with stiff wall protection that was stain-impermeable yet attractively textured, adding to the residential scale of those zones.

The neighborhoods included a greater variety of functional spaces. The sightlines down corridors were carefully planned to create visual cues, so that destinations were immediately understandable, whether it be patient rooms or the dining room. The walls in activity spaces in the neighborhoods included some accents, while other walls and columns were treated with slightly shimmery textured paints. Each space ‘owns’ a different feeling. The dining room was installed with faux cherry wood flooring, also from Forbo’s Eternal Wood line, with wainscoting and muted tones. The result feels sophisticated, not at all like a cafeteria.

The activity rooms have lively floor patterns in Armstrong linoleum with accented color walls. Neighborhoods also have quiet rooms and consultation rooms that would benefit from carpeted flooring, but it was determined not to be durable enough. Therefore, MoharDesign used a flocked tile (Forbo’s Flotex), which provided the effect of carpet but was durable enough to handle blood, urine and other stains, and could literally be hosed down to restore the flooring to its original state. Each neighborhood has an interior porch on the second level with floor to ceiling windows that overlook the downtown area. As part of the emergence recovery program, patients can safely view the downtown area, but might not yet be ready to engage in its higher level of activity. The porches are fitted out with teak outdoor furniture and faux slate tiles from Decoria.

The downtown is the ultimate destination, giving patients the opportunity to experience real life settings such as having coffee in the café, shooting pool in the game room, withdrawing money from the bank, getting their hair done in the hair salon and doing research in the library. The main part of downtown is an open two-story space with porcelain tile (Floor Gres’ Ecotech) that subtly feels like a sparkly concrete sidewalk. The café and game rooms are smaller structures within the large downtown area, clad in cedar clapboard siding. Inside there are whimsical patterns of Armstrong linoleum and cork flooring from Expanko. The fitness center has cushioned athletic flooring (Forbo’s Marmoleum Sport flooring) and the basketball court is fitted out with linoleum flooring, complete with court lines.

The facility also includes a conference center that is separate from the patient areas. The conference center was fitted out with typical finishes, since it doesn’t need to meet the rigorous requirements of the rest of the facility. The character of the conference center with administrative offices is very sophisticated and subdued.

While the facility included a wide variety of finishes and color treatments, MoharDesign took great care to ensure that the design was always sophisticated and never trite or institutional. And while the footprint of the building was massive, the interior palette, even with its variety of treatments, was created as part of one comprehensive design that feels holistically connected.

WRCH also achieved Gold LEED certification and has won an Honor Award for Excellence in Architecture from AIA New England. MoharDesign’s role on this project was extremely fulfilling and it really brought to light the importance of design to quality of life. When properly done, design can truly delight and inspire, as well as heal and bring dignity to peoples’ lives.

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