This is a design proposal for a well-being facility run by a mental health charity in Porto, Portugal. Exploring societal tensions of experiencing otherness, the project aims to create a space for interaction between the perceived self, and the other. It aims to promote openness and acceptance, instead of avoidance and neglect, particularly in the context of mental health and neurodivergence.

Located at a point where the river Douro meets the Atlantic Ocean, the scheme proposes the creation of a semi-detached island through constructing an inhabited buoyant platform which will gradually become part of the adjacent natural park through alluvial sedimentation. Responding to the concepts of refuge, and ‘islands’ of safety from society (Chapman 2018), this design project explores the tensions and nuances of inhabiting the boundaries between the self and the other. The project draws on multidisciplinary research from the fields of neuroscience (Antonio Damasio), psychiatry (R. D. Laing), philosophy (Henri Bergson) and sociology (Alfred Schutz), and refers to the life and artwork of Agnes Martin to explore the tensions between experiencing the self and the other.