Playbook for healing environments

The Playbook for healing environments is a spatial decision-making guide book, containing the spatial strategy to transform De Grote Beek into a sustainable healing environment. The strategy was developed on commission of GGzE, one of the largest mental health organisations in The Netherlands. The strategy consists of four chapters visualising and describing the actions that can be taken over a few weeks, months, years and decades. This is done to highlight the role of time and timing in the positive development of healing environments.
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To find out why and how this works take a peak at the essential summary in English or Dutch. Scroll further down to order the full version of the Playbook for healing environments.

In 2021, the Playbook for healing environments was published in Dutch and English for decision-makers and designers working on long-term inclusive transformations of communities and landscapes within the care sector.

Spatial strategy for Landgoed De Grote Beek

Developing a healing environment is not only about how the place looks, but also about how it changes and develops. Healing is a process, and so a healing environment is about making space and time for inclusion, learning and adaptation. This approach is illustrated with specific proposals, structured in four time frames - what can be done in a few weeks, months, years and decades. 

The research was commissioned by GGzE and was developed in a two-year design research project at TU Eindhoven. It builds on the existing masterplan of De Grote Beek, by defining an overarching story and approach for the healing environment and connecting it to existing and new initiatives and interventions. ​​

The complete strategy is published in the Playbook for healing environments (2021).

Read, see or hear about the project

#9 Communities of care and healing environments, from Van het podcastje naar de muur, a podcast series about design in and for health, by Marleen van Bergeijk

Work & Show: Healing environments, a section with outstanding work by members of BNO. This time, the spatial guide Playbook for healing environments by Studio Kornelia Dimitrova.

#4 On avoiding assumptions, from the Warming up to the Pluriverse podcast series by Sophie Krier and Eric Wong

Reporting from the intersection of mental health and sustainable development, an essay by Kornelia Dimitrova, for the research series of Archined. In this series of articles, PhD scholars from various universities explain their research and their way of working.

Experience-based cartography: Rethinking relations between people, objects and environments, a conference paper, presented at the AMPS Experiential Design Conference, in Florida, in 2020.

Om meer te weten over het project in het Nederlands, zie: Architectuur Centrum Eindhoven; Mestmag;

In search of the Pluriverse 

Exhibition: Until August 7 2022, on show in the In search of the Pluriverse exhibition, on show at Het Nieuwe Instituut, curated by Sophie Krier & Erik Wong.