Healthcare Design - March 2025 - 16

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a cohesive interior design to address some of the
issues patients and clinicians had faced in the
previous facility. For example, even at a smaller
footprint, the previous facility was difficult for
young patients and their families to navigate.
For the new center, Inguna Elere, chief development
officer and creative lead at H2E (Riga),
the interior design studio on the project, says
the project team focused on simplifying signage
to ease navigation, including small digital
screens outside patient rooms that can display
multiple messages. The strategy reduces clutter
in the hospital and supports efforts to deliver
a comforting care environment.
In early conversations with the interior designers,
Bezborodovs says he came up with the
idea for a butterfly theme to carry throughout
N MAY 2017, Dr. Ņikita Bezborodovs traveled from Latvia to
Finland to take part in the European Hospital and Healthcare
Federation's HOPE Exchange Programme. During his
month abroad, he toured Tampere University Hospital in
Tampere, Finland, where he was inspired by a new kidney
center and the facility's integration of art and design into
the healthcare facility. " They had a concept of water circulation
... for example, an art installation going through all
floors of the building depicting a 'fountain of youth,' " he says.
Taking that idea back home, he found an opportunity to employ a similar
strategy during the redesign of the Child and Youth Mental Health
Center at Children's Clinical University Hospital in Riga, Latvia, where
he is the chief specialist in child psychiatry and head of the center.
The children's behavioral health center, which offers treatment for
mental, behavioral, and neurodevelopment disorders, was part of an
inpatient unit housed in a 1980s-era building. In 2018, Riga-based architecture
firm NAMS was selected to design a new 45,540-square-foot
facility-approximately four times the size of the existing center-on the
hospital's main campus. The 3-story center opened in December 2023
with outpatient services on the first floor, four inpatient wards on the
second floor, and office space for specialists on the third floor.
From the start of the project, hospital administrators and architects
sought input from Bezborodovs and other doctors regarding what was
needed for the facility. Recalling his inspiring trip to Finland, he lobbied for
MORE ONLINE: For the full article and additional images of the project,
visit hcdmagazine.com/child-youth-mental-health-center-latvia.
I
16
MARCH 2025
ABOVE: A digital touch
screen in the outpatient
waiting area encourages
interactivity with games
and activities. One
application acts as a
mirror but reflects back
an image of the child
with butterfly wings and
antennae. BELOW: Small
digital screens on the
walls outside of exam
rooms cycle through
a display of the room
number and a view of
the inside of the room,
helping patients to better
prepare for their visit.
the project. The Greek word for butterfly is
" psyche " and butterflies have become a symbol
associated with mental health.
The H2E team expanded on that idea, incorporating
it into the wayfinding strategy.
Graphics of different varieties of native Latvian
butterflies, appearing to be drawn by hand in
graphite, are featured on each floor and in departments
and wards.
" In this post-COVID era, it's important for
children to feel something real, to have something
natural to touch, " says Ieva Timosko,
H2E's graphic designer on the project. Children
are encouraged to follow the flight patterns of
the butterflies, leading from one area to another
and represented by dotted lines that they can
trace with their finger as they go, she says.
" The brightness of butterfly wings represents
a joyful flight or journey toward healing, " Elere
adds. -Robert McCune, senior editor
HCDMAGAZINE.COM
H2E
http://www.hcdmagazine.com/child-youth-mental-health-center-latvia http://www.HCDMAGAZINE.COM
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