Building care for social change: creative learning centre for people with disabilities

The fundamental design criteria for today’s healthcare facilities relates to flexibility, understood as: versatility, expandability over time, adaptability to the need of different and changing end users. This implies the ability to design a building which, while maintaining unchanged its symbolic semantic expression, is able to respond to the different functionality of a dynamic quantitative and qualitative market demands. The design of this case-study system has been developed for a social-care centre to be devoted to the hospitality and support of vulnerable people with limited intellectual capacity. The facility should provide users with a type of temporary additional support to family care or, in more severe cases, the final stay within a protected structure. The first function results in a semi-residential daytime hospitality; the second, in a permanent long-term residential service. Users are adults (18-40 years) with mild or medium physical and intellectual disabilities and able to develop some level of self-sufficiency. The facility falls into the category of non-medical centres. With these aims, the new building is designed for 100 users (60 part time residents and 40 residents). The structure consists of a large roof-terrace that covers a light and permeable hall that hosts daytime functions, onto which a series of residential blocks are plugged in. The generous open-space is equipped with the highest degree of internal flexibility and offers maximum visual contact with the outside world. Green spaces and cones of light pierce the space, creating open areas suitable for group activities.