Child protection and reception center in Valencia

The idea is to build in the city of Valencia, a project for a Child protection and reception center.It is aimed at children under age who are in a complicated personal situation.The objectives are: to give an urban response to the neighbourhood and to create a pleasant and stimulating environment for children. Let's say it is a very sensitive project.

Taking into account the plot where the Child protection and reception centre will be located, which on the one hand adjoins the growing and unstructured neighborhood of the Fonteta de Sant Lluis and on the other, the good views to the orchard; the position of the different volumes was determined very conscientiously. There are clearly two parts in the project: one that is more in contact with the neighborhood and, therefore, will contain the public activities that take place there, and another more private, focused on the orchards, where the residence of the minors will take place. The strategy that gives priority to the passage of the green infrastructure through the site and the communication between the Centre and the school next to it, is materialized by arranging a larger "bridge" volume in the western perimeter and two volumes of smaller size next to the orchards in the eastern part of the site. To finish establishing a coexistence between the school and the new construction, it is decided to modify the access to the school by transferring it to the void that remains between the two buildings. This transformation gives meaning to the square that is created between both volumes. Therefore, the layout of the longitudinal volume on the edge with the school, a priori, may seem like a barrier, marking the end of the building and trying not to establish any connection between the school and the site. But, precisely, it pretends to be the opposite and hence the justification of its geometry and its emptying. The prominence that the building is intended to take cannot occur without the provision of a series of steps or cuts in the building that encourage contact between both sides to achieve permeability between the city and the orchards. With this strategy, buildings are absorbed by both the city and the orchards. When materializing, the project has taken into account: constructive simplicity, economy, characteristics of the place and the sensations that are intended to achieve. That is why the three volumes that make up the project follow the same constructive guidelines: concrete, steel, wood and stone.