Off-the-door design: Walls are doors at a new mental health clinic

Tokyo – A new clinic in the Japanese capital underlines a theme that LS:N Global has recently noted. The design of health centres is no longer being ignored.

The off-the-door design of a new mental health clinic created by local architectural practice Nendo features, among other things, doors which are not what they seem.

The door at the end of the hallway, for example, opens onto a window and the doors along the walls of the clinic do not open at all. Instead, doctors and patients enter the consultation rooms by sliding bookshelves sideways.

The stated aim of these quirky features is to make patients feel supported, and it aims to achieve this by ‘providing alternative perspectives for viewing the world’ and helping ‘visitors and staff members to experience opening new doors in their hearts’.