Sadler House Women's Shelter
Spring 2023 | Residential/Commercial Design
Every day, women come to shelters fleeing domestic abuse. Some come alone, some come with children, some in the middle of the afternoon, some in the dead of night. Regardless of their circumstances, they all deserve an intake process that is gentle, humane, and purifying. At the Sadler House, all entrants are required to supply their information, thave their clothing sterilized, take a shower, and complete a session with an in-house therapist. When done incorrectly, this process can be dehumanizing, discouraging, and humiliating. This design seeks to reframe that process as a purifying ritual in which the pains of the past are left behind, and a new chapter begins. Through the use of repeated patterns that feel sacred and a material palette that resembles a spa more than a clinic, entrants will finish the process feeling refreshed and reborn.
Long hallways are naturally intimidating, but this treatment expands and contracts in such a way that it cues deeper breathing as it is traversed. Similarly, highly repetitive, interlocking patterns cue a sense of stability in users.
The feature wall in the therapy room is made up of acoustic panels that control and dampen the sound coming from the space. Those panels start solid and slowly open up as they stretch across the room, much like users must open up as they tell their story to the person across from them.