Care and support

Children's Homes (4 and 6 bed)

Design approach

Our starting point for this project was two-fold: clearly we had to meet the requirements of the brief, but as we were designing a home for children to live in we felt it was also important to consider what the key elements of a ‘home’ were i.e. familiar, cosy, warm, welcoming, yours, safe and normal.

The brief highlighted that the building was to have three distinct uses:

Living

Support

School

Both living and support functions are integral to the concept of home. Given this close connection, we placed these areas side by side to enable easy movement between the two, whilst retaining the appropriate level of separation.

The idea of being schooled at home is alien to most children, so the school area is intentionally located away from the other areas. This allows the children to experience the act of leaving the home, walking through the elements to reach school – just like their friends.

The different areas are all linked by the ‘street’. This provides a clear route to the entrance and connects the different areas, but also creates spaces between them which allows for informal stopping places along the way.