Stone & Air: dwelling for people with mental health issues

My project is for people who need a buffer space between their mental illness and ordinary life. The disease is shocking for the body and you may stay fragile even after receiving the medication. In this dwellings, people can spend a couple of weeks in a small community of three, which offers, but not imposes, situations of communication and cross-supervision. The dwellings are situated on a bank of a mountain river, around 600 masl, near Austbygdi village. The rock under the huts is pure red gneiss, which I suggest using for building the walls. In the 20th century, this stone was extracted manually for local use, such as building bridges and fences. The design is a physical embodiment of the urges and needs of a depressed person. I studied these urges and needs by experiencing them myself. The building aims to give the required support and bodily comfort, at the same time, gently offering more at each step you make — through the spatial organization which makes you desire something and makes it easy to get. Stone and air is a response to the two main frailties we have when depressed: lack of support and protection, and lack of desires and connetions. These are the basics we need also in an ordinary, stable condition, even though when we’re healthy we don’t pay much attention to them. I believe the proposed program is a critique of how do we live now, how isolated we are — from simple things, from the environment, and from each other. I criticize how the way we live leads us to depressive conditions and other mental health issues: through the loss of connection and lack of feeling of solid ground under the feet. In an architectural sense, it’s also a critique of how we build — we tend to ignore rich sensual qualities of materials and, in an attempt to build economically, neglect small human actions in space.