Environmental Design Commons^™

This chapter explores how community might be reimagined for the benefit of public health as well as to promote incipient social or economic agendas born of progressive citizen action aimed at what is commonly characterized as development or, perhaps, even more broadly as “growth.” Can a city like Huntington, West Virginia, emerge as a positive example of what we might term postindustrial urban regeneration and perhaps even community healing? Can this happen specifically through a grassroots movement now finding local governmental support in a collective attempt to transform this place from one defined primarily by the productive capacity of factories …

This chapter will explore the therapeutic uses of place within the intentional space of purposively created community. By tracing the history of the Northern Michigan Asylum from mental hospital, to its closing and recent adaptive-reuse as neo-traditional community, the chapter will present a detailed case of the intentional use of place for therapeutic purposes in community settings. Built during a period of sweeping social, cultural and structural changes in late 19th century America, the Asylum was founded on the reformist “moral” or “milieu” treatment approach of Thomas Kirkbride. Kirkbride espoused creating self-sustaining communities where the built environment together with a …