Can good quality architecture prevent suicide?

The Vessel visitor attraction in New York [pictured below] is a 16-storey structure formed of 154 interlocking staircases. Opening in 2019, it has been closed indefinitely since late July 2021. The attraction was sealed off from the public two years after it opened as a result of four suicides that occurred from the viewing platforms.

After the first 2 people jumped off the viewing platforms, the site was closed, but reopened soon after; without the height of the barriers having been raised, as had been suggested by the local community and suicide-prevention researchers. 

The questions must be asked then: can good quality architecture prevent suicide while still providing freedom of choice? Or should we be intervening and controlling building design to eliminate suicide risk at all costs?     

To think more deeply about this significant topic, we helped organise an online CPD webinar in November last year, as part of CIAT Yorkshire. The aim was to review architecture and design, and help architectural technologists and architects think more clearly about what can be done to reduce suicide risk in and around buildings.   

The presentations and discussion forum, from experts Steve Philip, Ben Channon and Paul Vittles were poignant, relevant and perfectly balanced, and gave a lot of insight into how suicide prevention should be considered in relation to an architectural project.

The event concluded the following:

1. Suicide prevention should be integrated into legislation, possibly through the Building Regulations or CDM Regulations so suicide prevention is mandatory, not a luxury, ‘nice to have’ item. This is something that Gloucester City Council have made already mandatory for new building designs.
2. Increased awareness should be made through general education.
3. Increase awareness should be made via professional industry organisations.
4. Increased research is needed into this area as a whole.
5. More specific design guides are probably needed.

Issa Badawi, an architecture student from Manchester said, ‘What you and the panel have presented was very eye opening. I learned a lot about suicide prevention in the one hour I attended the event, more than I did in 3 years in Architecture school.’

To find out more about this important subject, please see the following links:  

https://lnkd.in/d-GvjBhv
https://www.ekkist.co  
https://www.absnet.org.uk 

Image credits: Spencer Platt, Getty Images + Michael Mora.