Lynn Lindley of Arcadis IBI Group talks to ColourDesign Library about the surprising role of colour in shaping the design of new mental healthcare facilities.

The power of colour

“Colour, texture and light have a profound impact on our psychological states,” says Lynn Lindley, UK Interior Design Lead at Arcadis IBI Group. “In mental healthcare interiors colour is critical to creating supportive, therapeutic and engaging environments. But colour can play a key role in the design development process too”.

Lynn is describing the conceptual approach of the recently occupied Rowan View healthcare campus in Liverpool, UK – a multi award-winning BREEAM excellent building co-locating health and learning disability care across eight inpatient wards.

A ‘rings of recovery’ design ethos employs curves and transitional spaces inside and out to focus on pathways towards wellness, prioritising natural light, green views and integrated artworks. “It’s people’s home for a time,” says Lynn. “But ultimately it’s an environment for getting people well enough to go home.”

Colour vision

Instead of being an add-on, colour was fundamental from the facility’s early planning stages, with the interior designer collaborating closely with IBI Group’s research lead Richard Mazuch and mental health architecture expert Karen Flatt.

Lynn explains that on projects with complex stakeholders, establishing an overarching narrative can be instrumental in engaging the client and multiple user groups with a design vision. “Our healthcare design is clinically led but it’s also very person-centred – and we find storytelling is vital in communicating to people about design ideas.”

In the case of Rowan View the story was about a prominent Rowan tree on the site, and how it changes colour with the seasons. That narrative ultimately led to the facility’s name, as well as forming the basis for the building’s palette of nature-based colours and approach to wayfinding with colour.

Choreographing with colour

More overt and saturated shades are great for establishing building identity externally as well as for internal navigation, says Lynn ­– explaining that at Rowan View stronger colours were used in circulation areas and at the entrances to wards. “But within the wards we used colour in a different way, workshopping with service users on colour preferences to create identifiable home-like zones. The resulting designs use softer, complementary shades, and the floor surfaces are very neutral.”

Likening the process to choreographing with colour and light, Lynn says that a core principle for Rowan View’s interior environments was providing a wide range of settings with different colours at different intensities to suit varying moods and preferences. “There is some universal science around colour perception, particularly around the blue-orange spectrum, with evidence that blue lowers blood pressure and suppresses appetite while orange light is known to aid relaxation. But in reality, people’s neural landscapes are all very different.”

Healing with colour and art

Working with an arts coordinator, the team briefed artists to create the building’s many site-specific artworks, including a tactile display of colourful illuminated verse from a local poet in the reception area and a courtyard tree sculpture whose kinetic metal leaves create a gentle sound as they play in the breeze, scattering reflective light. 

A psychologically important space is the building’s spine corridor, connecting wards with family visiting spaces as well as tribunal rooms where patients meet medical teams to discuss progress. “We knew this route would be invested with a lot of complex and changing emotions and we didn’t want to give it a single colour identity,” says Lynn.

Measuring the time it took to walk the distance, the team created a brief for the artwork Aurora, which uses LED light and dichroic film to create an immersive installation of slowly evolving colours based on circadian rhythms.

To find out more about IBI Group’s Sense Sensitive Design approach you can watch Lynn Lindley and Richard Mazuch in conversation here.