Rehabilitation Center for people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

This project focuses on people who suffer from PTSD as a user group. It explores how spaces can be designed conducive to the healing process and its main goal is to create an environment in which these patients recuperate physically, emotionally and spiritually through various kinds of therapy.

This rehabilitation center will be an outpatient Treatment program that is designed so that patients can commit to recovery without giving up their independent lives. The project began with a theoretical concept of “Folding Trauma”. It refers to a practice of folding the traumatic event, of capturing the traumatic event by containing it within the forms of what can be said and what can be seen. Therefore, the main emphasis of the project was on the development of a design language/strategy that can help to create a form and spaces that support the concept of folding trauma. Patient and community interaction was vital in the design process of this facility, this occurs at two levels. Communication needs to be internal and external, which happens when people interact and share common experiences. On the ground level, there are 3 individual masses, which are all connected on the first floor; the reason behind this was to create a clear and visible axis from the entrance of the site to the seashore. The project pays great attention to pedestrian movement because one of the guidelines for Trauma-Informed Design which is to make all pedestrian movement clear, unobstructed and less complex. All public functions on the ground floor to serve as magnets, which will attract people of the community to the facility and help the patients in their rehabilitation program, while all private are on the first floor in order to create a boundary/balance between private and public/social spaces. The form of the building gives room for the creation of gathering spaces between and around it, various activities will be taking place in those areas at certain times of the day as it is an Outpatient Rehab Center where patients can commit to recovery without giving up their independent lives.