“Who Were the ‘Experts’ Here Anyway?”: Mothering, Architecture, and Terminal Illness in Oxford, 1978–95

This paper presents a significant case study in the history of care architecture. It illustrates how the work of care, mothering, and architectural production can be inextricably linked - albeit often invisibly. It builds on the scholarship of Annmarie Adams and Cynthia Hammond, who have each argued that certain groups of women, historically credited only with domestic, medical, or caring skills, also had significant spatial knowledge and influence. Helen House (Oxford, UK, 1982) was the first paediatric hospice in the world. Designed by architect John Bicknell of Bicknell and Hamilton (London, UK) and accommodating eight children at a time, the house was named for Helen Worswick, a child who, at two years old, was found to have a brain tumour. In this paper, I tell the story of Helen House from the perspective of its architecture, specifically tracing the contributions of Helen's mother Jacqueline, Helen House founder Sister Frances Dominica Ritchie, and Helen herself. First, like Adams and Hammond before me, I demonstrate that the story of Helen House and paediatric hospice care is yet another where non-architect women carers were deeply involved in creating architecture. Second, I suggest that even down to the name, Helen House leveraged domesticity and mothers' expertise to create a more palliative architecture for children with life-limiting illness - reinforcing the long-running image of the domestic sphere as a woman's, more specifically a mother's, domain. Finally, I argue that the creation, design, and building of Helen House served as a testing ground for the new care philosophy, allowing it to grow and come into its own spatially, functionally, and theoretically.