Revit & Enscape — Senior Thesis Project, Spring ‘25
As a designer, my goal has always been to bring awareness to how profoundly our mental health can be affected by the design of the interior spaces we interact with. Being someone who has struggled with mental health their whole life, I have experienced this firsthand. Whether it be a room in your home or a space from your workplace, each choice involved in the design of these places can impact our mental wellbeing even if we might not register it.
From my extensive time in psych wards and hearing the incessant criticism from the very community these spaces are intended to support, I’ve come to realize that if we genuinely want to create healing environments that truly foster recovery, something needs to change — and I want to be part of what sparks that change.
In this project, I have spent the past year redesigning the Virginia Treatment Center for Children’s adolescent inpatient ward to suit the needs of a younger me struggling to navigate life as a child with severe depression. I ask the question: How can a central focus on biophilic design concepts in an adolescent inpatient psych ward allow a younger me to reap the benefits of nature as a universal healer while confined indoors?