Crisis Containers

In August, I experienced my first crisis of health—a particularly relentless acute kidney failure. Raised in a “tough it out, just drink some water” family, I attempted to fight off fevers for several days, but to no avail, I sought a container for my crisis and called an Uber to Hospital São José.

As I passed through the layers of automatic sliding glass, I became acutely aware of a deep, crushing chasm of energy pulsing hotly within the space. I sat dumb, my mouth agape, and felt myself—and all the other members of the waiting room—being swept up in a compulsive spin between its two banks. In a health crisis, you sway at the tipping point between recovery and death — a liminal stance of torture and involuntary bodily indecision. The hospital’s energy chasm was not built; it was a confusion of kinetic potential, and it was coming from us.

A container for such an extraordinary collision of energy must be designed very particularly. How?

Observed principles of crisis container design:
The Hospital

I.
It must be hospitable enough for the crisis.

By hospitable, I mean gentle enough not to agitate the crisis into becoming uncontrollable. This does not imply enjoyment by any means. The hospital must simply find a way to retain kinetic order. They must minimize the destruction caused by the clashes of energy occurring within and between each patient. To address the simultaneity of these crises, the design solution cannot be confined to an escapable corner or a point of passage. It must apply to the atmosphere.

Solution: They impose a hum designed to neutralize kinetic spasms. It reverberates subtly and perpetually from the walls, hanging twitching in the throat of the air.

II.
It must progress the crisis, not hold it still.

A crisis is not meant to be occupied eternally. It is, by nature, a moment. If you cannot free a person from the immense clashes of energy occurring within them during a crisis, they will eventually implode. If they feel too safe inside the crisis container, they will try to remain. The crisis container must somehow imbue the person with the desire to leave. This will require intentional discomfort, but it must be more nuanced than torture.

Solution: The sharp meeting of things. No element flows naturally into the next. Every transition must include a reminder of difference. Tile is a different shade from paint, so the wall meeting the floor is a strictly planned event. The steel beams across the ceiling serve a designated and materially specific purpose. The entrance to every space necessitates a cruel glass distinction. When the needle meets your skin, you shudder, because all you can remember is that it is foreign.

III.
It must not let the crisis leak out the window and into the world.

The key to hospital design is the distinction made between the crisis and the person. In the same way that gentle treatment of the crisis does not equate to gentle treatment of the person, though the hospital moves the person to leave the container, the crisis must stay.

Solution: No integration of the hospital and the outside world. It must be built like a compound and include a process of rigorous sanitation upon release.

An external crisis—such as health, financial, or otherwise—often ushers in a parallel internal crisis. The material of the mind is different from the material of a building. Does the same design apply?

Suggested principles of crisis container design:
The Mind

I.
Consistent, it must be hospitable enough for the crisis.

It is crucial that the mind retains control over the crisis. Kinetic neutralizing techniques similar to the hospital’s hum could be applied to the mind.

II.
Consistent, it must progress the crisis, not hold it still.

It is not sustainable to keep a crisis for too long. However, the hospital technique of intentional discomfort should not be applied to the mind. The hospital is a public place where you are not in control of the environment. Thus, being in discomfort would logically cause you to want to leave—progressing the crisis. The mind is a private space over which you retain control. If you were to inflict intentional discomfort, you would be more likely to accept it as just, and choose to keep the crisis static.

III.
Distinct, the mind must be a mutable container.

If the rampant energy of crisis must never leak, then the structure containing it will naturally suffer as a result. A building’s degradation is less consequential than the degradation of the mind. Unlike in the hospital container, there is benefit to letting your crisis leak out the window. Don’t waste the kinetic irrationality of a crisis. If it leaks out the window, then let it leak out the window—and into artistic form.