The series documents George Mean’s involvement in the design and development of the “Village System Concept” for mental health care in South Carolina. This idea grew out of a 1968-1970 mental health care master planning research program between the South Carolina Department of Mental Health and Clemson University’s Health Care Facilities Planning and Design Studio led by Means. It was meant to provide “a homelike residential community setting for in-patient treatment that reflects similar type societal influences that each patient must learn to adjust to in his own community. The basic treatment philosophy … [is] group therapy.” The Village System was to be composed of four regional intensive treatment villages (Villages A-D) and at least one “special” village for the intensive treatment of alcohol and drug addicts. The villages would act as a second line of treatment, taking individuals from community mental health centers and their satellites and clinics.

It was approved by the Governing Board of the South Carolina Mental Health Commission, the Legislative Committee on Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and the South Carolina Budget and Control Board in 1971. Three villages were completed: the Earle E. Morris Village Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment Center in Columbia in 1975, the G. Werber Bryan Psychiatric Hospital (Village A) in Columbia in 1978, and the Patrick B. Harris Psychiatric Hospital (Village B) in Anderson in 1984. While programmatic planning was initiated for Village C (to be located in the Darlington-Florence Counties area), neither it nor Village D, which would have served coastal South Carolina, were ever built.

The majority of the material relates to the Addictions Center and Village A; for Village B, the architectural records are mainly for the road system to the village with few village site or floor plans. In addition to the concept and design of the villages the series documents the building process for the three constructed villages through correspondence, memoranda, and minutes from C. Milford Hunter and Robert B. Price (successively chiefs of the Engineering and Planning Section for the State Department of Mental Health), the Tarleton-Tankersley Architectural Group, Inc. and MBTB Architects-Engineers, both of Greenville, SC. The series also documents Mean’s efforts to publicize the Village System to others in the state and the broader architectural and medical communities through articles, reports, and other publications.

These files date from 1969-1985 with the bulk of the items dating between 1970 and 1978. Material in this series is arranged alphabetically by folder title.