3 Skylight Youth Residence

Reading the project

An important aim of the project was the restoration of the original volumetry of the old hospital, which had been completely distorted over the years. To compensate for the resulting reduction in floor area, the competition proposal also restored an existing building at the rear of the plot and connected it with the main one through a bridge. The inhabitants of the residence are children and teenagers from unstructured families, or with no family at all. Giving these young people with troubled backgrounds a luminous, well-structured new home to rebuild their lives became essential.

In this sense, precise openings were made in the roofs to illuminate the dark central corridors and the staircase. Many details in the project (doors, windows, the guard’s position, hidden cameras) reconciled the desired comfort and intimacy with the security requirements these residences have. With the new facility, the children’s behaviour improved a lot: a welcome confirmation that architecture can offer not only physical comfort, but great psychological comfort too.

Project facts

Dates

2005 – 2008

Client

Consell Insular de Menorca

Gross area

973 m²

Budget

1.013.800 €

Contractor

Edificaciones Ramos S.A.

Coauthors

Jesús Cardona

Technical architect

Victor Martín

Pictures

Ferran Vizoso

Collaborators

Xosé Domínguez, Iolanda Murakame, Frauke Rauke, Debora Buehlmann

Case-study note: the facts, photographs and credits on this page come from the project's own records.