Usera Social Services Centre

‘House. Courtyard. Garden’ – A house is not defined by its walls, but by the life it is able to bring together

The proposal for the new Social Services and Family Care Center in Usera arises from a reflection on how a public facility can be understood as a home. A place of proximity, where every room, every shadow, and every threshold can offer shelter. Here, architecture is understood as a gesture of protection, a way of accompanying, of offering trust to those who arrive.

As in ancient Roman houses, where dwelling was organized around the courtyard, the project finds its origin in this gesture: a landscaped courtyard, open to the sky, where light, air, and vegetation construct a shared home. A breathing space that gathers and generates connections, articulating the different parts of the program. Around it, on the ground floor, the accesses to the Social Services Center, the CAF, and the other social facility are arranged, forming a unified whole in its form, yet differentiated in its use. Above this green plinth emerges a lighter, more domestic volume, relating the scale of the individual to the scale of the home, closer to the gesture of a house than to that of an institution.

The roof of the plinth extends as a green roof, expanding the garden towards the city. In this way, the building not only provides care but also hosts life, maintains the existing pedestrian passage, integrates vegetation, and opens up a new space for staying, play, and respite. A protected place for childhood and coexistence, a gentle landscape where the public and the domestic meet.

A house, a courtyard, a garden where care becomes space.