The idea behind the project is to consider the complex for the Fondazione Sacra Famiglia as part of a large park; a green space in which it is possible to walk, stop and find opportunities for relations for all its inhabitants - both those in care and the operators who work there every day. Indeed, the New Multi-Service Centre is conceived as a complex of low pavilions, connected to each other, surrounded by nature, a choice which allows the project to integrate harmoniously and organically with the existing building, thus involving the entire complex.
From a typological point of view, in an absence of a codified reference, the project was an opportunity to "create" a new typology. In fact, the overall distribution scheme stems on one hand from the interpretation of the competition programme, thus answering the question posed in functional and dimensional terms, and on the other hand from the necessity to give substance, through the shapes of architecture, to the inner meaning that the new building must be able to convey to the community.
The image we started from was that of a large contemporary convent, not in the sense of a closed and separate place, but emphasising its community and social aspect: perhaps the convent is the place that more than others is related to an idea of hospitality, calm and welcome. Just as the convent is made up of different buildings, in terms of shape and function, which gather around a cloister - an element able to connect all the functions, a central place and a meeting space - so the project for the New Centre is made up of different buildings - the pavilions required by the programme - which gather around a squared open space.
The project therefore places a large empty space at its centre, a green courtyard, a symbolic place for relations around which the ring of clinics develops, ideally embracing and connecting all the buildings in the programme. A square which, on the scale of the masterplan, represents a new identity pole, while, on the scale of the users who experience it daily, it evokes an idea of community; a square in which people can walk around and meet, a square whose proportions follow the ones of the old centre and with which ideally builds a bridge; a way of looking forward to the future while keeping firm roots in a past we can be proud of.
From an architectural point of view, the New Centre comprises a central body housing the clinics and five different pavilions housing the hall and the four units required by the competition: Autism, Developing Age - divided into Day Care and Residential - and Intermediate Care.