The Sanctuary

When given the prompt to find a user group that is categorized as youth at riskin an affluent area such as Buckhead, we looked at what challenges the youth are facing right now in this area. All across the country, mental health awareness has expanded and the demand for people to receive help has grown. Teens in Buckhead have few activities to do that cater to improving their mental health. We believe the sanctuary will be a place of safety, and improvement for individuals’ mental health illnesses. There was a need for a facility in this region to not only aid teens struggling with their mental health, but a place of peace with activities to improve all around health. We have chosen to focus our user group on teens with trauma and with that, they also struggle with anxiety and depression. From research conducted, there are trauma responses that the users experience that we were sensitive to through our design strategies. With that said, our main occupancy classification for this building is I-1 institutional, condition 1.