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HAPPI Hour recording: Trauma Informed Design within Learning Disabilities Environments

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To coincide with this year's Learning Disability Week, we were pleased to host a HAPPI Hour webinar with West Waddy Archadia (WWA) architects in which we explored a number of projects for a developer providing supported housing where they have a psychologist who is working with them to develop housing which has psychological benefits and enhancements beyond standard supported housing specification.

Drawing on ‘Trauma Informed Design’ work in a homelessness context from the USA, WWA has been working to translate the psychological aspects into architectural interventions in the UK, within a supported housing context in a new brief in relation to people with learning disabilities.

We were delighted to be joined by:

  • Mark Slater, Design Director at West Waddy Archadia
  • Jill Pable, University Professor at Florida State University and founder of Design Resources for Homelessness 
  • Patricia Mazure, Clinical Psychologist, Founder of Havenstone Housing and Empowered Homes
  • Kathryn Gundry, Design Associate at West Waddy Archadia

The Trauma Informed Design brief aims to form a framework for trauma informed design that can be applied to both new build and existing properties through combining the disciplines of psychology and architecture.