What to tell the architect

Mental health authorities have recently embarked on extensive and long-range construction projects to house the programs of the future. These projects have forced a confrontation with a number of problems revolving on the question of what should the mental health authority tell the architect. This study reports on the kinds and amounts of written information which seven architectural firms, who have been commissioned to design new mental health facilites, prefer to have when they begin their dialogue with the administrator or his designated programmer and when they address the issues of translating the functional requirements of a facility into space arrangements and architectural design.