Child protection Center
Thesis project
Character: Welfare Building
Location: Ilioupoli, Athens
Year: 2015
Cooperation: Giannouli Nefeli
Supervisor: Tasis Papaioannou
In this thesis we tried to approach a major social issue, the issue of child abuse. To this end, we chose to design a child protection center, the goal of which is to host children although not orphans, their family environment is unsuitable for their upbringing.
An important factor throughout the course of our work was our ongoing collaboration with some bodies in the organization "The smile of the child", who enlightened us on how their centers operate, and what is the behavior and needs of their children. Moreover, since we are talking about a particular social group, our research expanded to include research on child psychology, such as theories of Piaget, Freud, and Maria Montessori. Finally, the configuration of our building program based on one of our own age segregation that now refers to spatial criteria, drawn up on the basis of these theories but also on interviews learned from the bodies of the child's smile, and independent experts in the field.
Our design proposal took into account functional and psychological criteria as derived from the aforementioned research, and other criteria such as view, orientation, topography and integration in the wider neighborhood.
An important factor throughout the course of our work was our ongoing collaboration with some bodies in the organization "The smile of the child", who enlightened us on how their centers operate, and what is the behavior and needs of their children. Moreover, since we are talking about a particular social group, our research expanded to include research on child psychology, such as theories of Piaget, Freud, and Maria Montessori. Finally, the configuration of our building program based on one of our own age segregation that now refers to spatial criteria, drawn up on the basis of these theories but also on interviews learned from the bodies of the child's smile, and independent experts in the field.
Our design proposal took into account functional and psychological criteria as derived from the aforementioned research, and other criteria such as view, orientation, topography and integration in the wider neighborhood.
The site
The area we choose to locate the center is a residential area in the suburbs of Athens. The plot is tangential to the end of the settlement, in a slope of Hymettus mountain. The connection to the physical element of the mountain, the orientation, the easily transportation to the site, the social structure of the area along with the proximity to school complexes where reasons that lead us to the selection of the plot.
