Sympathetic architecture aids recovery
This treatment center for disturbed children is a combination of simplicity and sympathy. Fujimoto’s idea was to create a multiplicity of “centres” in the series of apparently random, but in reality carefully planned, arrangements of the individual buildings. In their ‘external’ relationship to each other, there is no obvious centre to the complex, no hierarchy of buildings or spaces. Internally, the provision of alcove and other semi-private areas allows the residents to occupy their own centre stage, or to use the common space as a centre.
This strategy addresses two common conditions in disturbed young people, on the one hand a feeling of powerlessness and indeed sometimes paranoia, and on the other hand a desire to be able to assert their independent personality.
There is a countless center. They are "relative centers" which always interchanges and changes with the consciousness of those who are there or the condition of light. For the staff, a staff room is a functional center. For children, living room, a single room, or an alcove is a center. The occasional center is found out in fluctuation of space.
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