PSYCHEDELICS - Sciencemadness.org

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____________________________________________________ Psychedelics
this existing psychiatric hospital, which had been built in
1921 and had been improved very little during its lifetime
Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Plan, a regional psychiatric
community hospital program, Was being developed by the
Psychiatric Services Branch of the Provincial Department 0f
Public Health, under the direction of Dr. F. S. Lawson. This
plan envisaged a number of small psychiatric centers through-
out the province, related to regional general hospitals (Law-
son, 1957).
The usual survey of literature was undertaken, and existing
hospitals were studied, particularly the few recent ones, but it
was apparent that very little information was available. While
the psychiatric and related programs were being detailed, we
attempted to establish the premises and principles of architectural
design that would be applicable to the renovation of
the existing hospital and also to the construction of a new
hospital. There were many periods of intense discussion with
all concerned, particularly with the therapy staff and Dr.
Humphry Osmond, Superintendent of the Saskatchewan Hospital
at Weyburn. Dr. Osmond prepared notes on the functions
of a psychiatric ward, describing the patients' disabilities
and setting out general principles for design related to the
patients' needs. He contended that buildings exhibit general
qualities of either "sociofugality" or "sociopetality," the former
preventing or discouraging the formation of stable human
relationships and the latter encouraging, fostering, and even
enforcing them. Using Dr. Osmond's notes as a basis for
design, an architectural counterpart was developed that recognized
three levels of human association: the personal association,
when a person is by himself; relatively intimate association
with a small number of people; and association with a
large group. The architectural solution was eventually resolved
into a semicircle, with small "retreats" on the periphery,
spaces for large group activity in the center, and, in the
intermediate area, spaces for small groups. The design concept,
which evolved from initial study and research, was called
the "sociopetal" concept (Osmond, 1957a; Izumi, 1957;
Izumi, 1958).
Despite the progress we had made, many of the significant
and more detailed psychiatric considerations and their archi-