Our investigation of the place started with meetings with different catogories of staff and personel, that are daily involved with the patients and the maintenance of the wards. We met with everyone from doctors to representatives of the firm that takes care of buildings and gardens as well as the head of information for Akademiska sjukhuset. We tried to learn as much as possible about the different situations and states of mind the patients can be faced with. One group that we met with regularly was a group of representatives from the wards.

In the process we decided to cover the wards and the immediate surroundings with a layer of art, rather than present a decoration of some kind. The psyciatric area of a hospital, as a lowpriority place, screamed of needs of care in all ways imaginable. A lot of work has been put into getting rid of things, like mixed curtains, patterned differently in every window. To encourage the staff to let the wards be institutional and open to many people rather than a mix-up of several different private homey tastes at the same time, has been an important part of our work. We filled the hallway with all the stuff we took away.

One important part of our work lies in getting rid of cover-ups for certain things lacking. Only then it seemes possible to see what is really needed, and how to get it.The dining-room has been furnished with things we have found at the wards and storage at Ulleråker. Some of them have been restored, something that has inspired the staff to plan restoration work-shops with the patients.

We "vacuum-cleaned" the storages of Akademiska sjukhuset, and have found quite an amount of Danish and Swedish design furniture. The things we have found makes quite a difference in a milieau where most of the stuff used before was either broken or really messed up.

Part of our strategy to use whatever we found was also a consequence of a very limited budget. We also wanted to use the designclassics since they are all good quality stuff, that have kept in good shape for many years and are still in production and possible to replace with another piece. Every piece of furniture we found was polished, cleaned, mended, repainted by us as a gesture of the importance of care. Also to stress that no work like that is to menial to be done by anyone who realizes the importance of offering a milieu that breaths respect, for the people who are spending a lot of time at the ward. Which means both staff and patients.

In our talks with the staff we got to give advice when it came to buying some new furniture and curtains to the wards. We chose to get closer to the red colour that dominated the milieu, through the protecting wall and door-blades. Up til then the staff had, with varying success, tried to hide the colour by adding all other different colours to the ward. We decided to turn towards the red, and to admit its presence, not hide it, and managed to get sofas in exactly the same colour.

The corridors of the wards are vast, around 60 m. The only lighting is flourecent tubes which can only be on or off. Many patients have problems distinguishing day from night. To help the patients the staff would pull out whatever small lights available, to be able to turn the flourecent off.This gave a very confusing impression. We used the money, otherwise used for illuminating art, to buy new lamps that also was installed with a dimmerfunction. These lamps completely gave the corridors a new atmosphere. Benches were placed out as resting areas on the sometimes long walks between patients rooms and common areas.

We have also put nesting-boxes for birds in most of the trees surrounding the wards. We want to bring all the good stuff around closer to the wards. We have chosen nesting-boxes suitable for many different species of birds, from sparrows to merganser. We also built a feedinghouse for the winter. This will also be something that the ward has to take care of, which we have found is done. Those patients who can't go out can have contact with this from the inside.