What the construction of the new Shelter Home for the Homeless offers, beyond satisfying the needs of shelter and food for the residents, is an opportunity for improving the quality of life of a socially excluded group, whose needs reach further than the simple fact of finding a place to sleep.
The proposal defines a sound volume, able to assume with personality the intensity of use to which it is going to be subjected to, and being at the same time flexible in its functioning, where the interior configuration facilitates the coexistence among the different groups of users and allows for undertaking the different needs that are found in a relatively complex program in spite of its limited space: bedrooms, dining rooms, occupational workshops, leisure rooms, etc. A silent box is proposed, that protects its contents from the curiosity of the onlookers, and that adequately integrates its reduced scale in a semi-urban, bleak environment.
The Project has undertaken an exercise of careful contention in various levels: -Spatial: An extremely rational distribution is disposed, modulated and adjusted, where the program of needs exhausts the meagre area at our disposal. -Formal: A discreet, sensible and contained architecture is proposed, with no room for fancies. -Economic and Temporal: The construction works where undertaken in the adjusted period of 6 months, at an amount of 870€/m2. -Energetic: the building holds an A level energetic qualification.
The centre offers shelter and food for its users. In exchange of these, they must get involved in the daily tasks of maintenance, such as cleaning, washing, gardening, painting,…searching in this way for a personal compromise and positively focusing the respect for the new installation
Functional Organisation: A central volume hosts the building’s services and installations. The distribution spaces surround this nucleus, and take to the centre’s living spaces, which are disposed in the exterior perimeter with the aim of benefiting from natural light and ventilation: bedrooms, workshops, dining rooms and leisure rooms.
An exterior lattice conformed by aluminum profiles guarantees the desirable privacy of the users, and at the same time resolves the possible intrusion problems that may occur in such a center, and configures an homogeneous and unitary exterior image, adapting the scale of the building to its environment.
The building integrates two different uses: a user hostage service and a medium stay centre for stable homeless persons in the city. Although both groups live together in the same volume, the project must avoid interferences amongst both programs, facilitating its functional independence. For this reason two independent accesses are proposed, through each of two opposed longitudinal facades.
The user centre takes the ground and the whole of the first floor, and accounts for a total of 18 double rooms. It is complemented with the corresponding toilets and bathrooms, an occupational workshop where the users are offered the possibility of developing several types of work during the day, a drycleaners service, a social dining room with a capacity of up to 48 seats, leisure rooms, administration, reception and locker.
The medium stay service, of a lesser volume, offers 9 double rooms, plus corresponding toilets and common areas.
