Care Center for Ill Children, Zagreb

The programmatic nature of the humanitarian family center for caring of ill children directs the attention to creating warm interior situations which interconnect along fluid trajectories. On the outside, the house is firmly wrapped in a continuous brick envelope which breathes where squares, porticos and gardens/terraces perforate it. On the inside, it diverges through ambiences providing ‘a home away from home’. The building is friendly toward its users and enables them to find a nook of their own. Various but controlled spaces for play, talk, study, walk or rest branch out through the interior of the center and follow the daily needs of the children and their parents. The scale of the building is reduced by means of small, specific situations which offer an empathic answer to the users’ daily routines. The common space is legible from various places and directions, at the same time offering the possibility of retreat to a quiet corner or room. The atrium, green terraces and roof garden create added nano urban conditions, fragments of a regulated nature within reach of the center’s everyday life.