Safety & Security

Of all the ideals of Trauma-Informed Design, one priority is paramount: to make residents feel safe and secure.

A large portion of this is achieved through location. Haven House and Cloud Nine Studios were built in a quiet, mature residential neighborhood of a few cul-de-sacs, so there is no through traffic and hours can pass without a single car driving by. This area is in a small natural canyon, so it is especially serene as there is almost no noise from wind or surrounding areas. Often, the only sounds in the area are the calls from songbirds in the surrounding trees.

Despite being uncommon in such a safe area, both actual and perceived safety has also been enhanced through a variety of physical security measures, such as motion-activated lights, advanced electronic door locks, double-gated perimeter paths, and an extensive network of security cameras.

However, for people recovering from trauma, it is not enough just to be safe but to also feel safe.

To that end, certain architectural elements enhance the perceived safety even further. For example, the outdoor aesthetic incorporates elements from castles, like the rough-hewn stone block walls and handcrafted lion door knockers on every entry door. While these features do not provide any additional physical security, they do provide subconscious cues that help residents to see their home as a fortress that will keep them safe.

Coming Home

can be just as important as being safe,

Great care has been put into the entry experience. (WEAK?) At Haven House, this starts with ascending an extra-wide, textured staircase

At Cloud Nine, the experience is even more complex; you can read more about on the Recovery Pathway page.

At Haven House, since all the practical considerations have been well taken care of, the focus moved to harmony

At the very top of all priorities was safety: both actual safety and the perception of safety. (A close second was promoting sleep quality.) Each of these priorities are executed wildly differently at each facility. For example, a big challenge at Cloud Nine was to design a process by which women who live alone and are recovering from serious trauma can come home at night and feel safe. At Haven House, much of the travel is done in groups, a staff member is always here, if not a full house of people—the experience is very different. Since all the practical safety concerns are well taken care of, in a group living situation like this, how the women feel about their housemates is going to be the top variable affecting their sense of safety at home.

Coming home to a house full of people you get along with is an incredibly therapeutic experience in and of itself; however, living in an environment with people with whom you have constant conflict triggers the stress response, consuming precious mental energy and interfering with sleep, potentially exhausting a patient before they even arrive at Monima for therapy. For this reason, I concluded that the largest variable source of positive or negative effects of living at Haven House is the other residents, and the most effective measure to improve the perceived safety of the home would be to improve the interpersonal relationships of the residents, so I made dozens of design changes specifically to promote harmony.

(Segue to harmony)

automatic locks

double-paned windows

Oversized elements (staircase, front door)

and front door, castle elements (block walls, lion knocker) make it feel like a fortress automatic deadbolt, which helps those with anxiety know that the door is always locked as soon as it's closed.