In 2020, the Brain and Mind Centre (BMC), a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Sydney, commenced a collaboration with the School of Architecture, Design and Planning (ADP) on research to better understand the role of spatial design in the delivery of clinical services and research in mental health, neurology, and neuroscience.

Since the collaboration’s inception, an ADP team consisting of Professor Chris L. Smith, Professor Donald McNeill, Associate Professor Leigh-Anne Hepburn, and Dr Jason Dibbs has conducted various research and teaching activities with BMC colleagues.

These have included a field trip to the key sites of institutional psychotherapy in France with international collaborators Anthony Faramelli (Goldsmiths University, London), Elena Vogman (Weimar-Bauhaus Universität), and Julie Van Der Weilen (Vrije Universiteit Brussels); a co-design workshop and a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from the various disciplinary, clinical and research groups working within the BMC’s facilities; an intensive design studio for a youth mental health outreach centre; and a graduation thesis studio, ‘Head Place,’ for Master of Architecture students.

Research from this collaboration has been published as a book chapter, “Space of Co-Design in Mental Health, Neurology, and Neuroscience”, in Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing: Co-Design, Interventions, Education and Policy (Routledge, 2023), and in a paper for the Situated Ecologies of Care Conference (Architectural Humanities Research Association, 2023). The work is also featured in an upcoming special edition of Khōrein: Architecture and Philosophy.

The collaboration between ADP and BMC remains active; ongoing work includes the third ‘Head Place’ graduation thesis studio (run by Rose McEnery), a Wellcome Trust grant application (with colleagues at Goldsmiths, University of London), and the development of a new collaborative research trajectory exploring the role of design in healthy ageing.