The need for behavioral health environments is rising. Where the mental and physical used to be separate, now the medical community is making strides in realizing it’s about the whole self. The mental and physical are equally important. That’s driving this need to create spaces that recognize and serve that population, and the spectrum can be quite large. The built environment needs to support the staff to manage situations in a way that staff, the patient and family members can remain unharmed.

Part of the function of behavioral health spaces is to help people get to a better place therapeutically. That is why the furniture needs to reflect warmth, caring and concern. It needs to lack that stigma of institutionalism.