Phenomena

The human brain uses emotion to assign meaning to the objects and relationships it perceives. Emotion is fundamental to the brain’s creation of meaning and there can be no meaning or significance without it.

The COVID?19 crisis has heightened the risk factors generally associated with poor mental health – financial insecurity, unemployment, fear – while protective factors – social connection, employment and educational engagement fell dramatically. This has led to a significant and unprecedented worsening of population mental health. With over 970 million people worldwide suffering from a form of mental health disorder, stress, anxiety and depression being the most prevalent, this thesis focuses on designing public spaces embedded with healing methodologies to aid mental health conditions from a community-scale to world scale.