A new normal
Arriving at a place where you finally feel safe and protected can be the end of a trying journey. Young people from difficult backgrounds, whose home doesn’t feel like home anymore, find such a safe haven here: a place of transition where they can recover, where they feel appreciated and secure, but also an environment where they can learn how to live together with others, develop as individuals and train for a job.
Our task was to provide a framework for the diversity of these young lives lived under one – temporary – roof, with all the intimate, semi-public and exposed moments that involves. Up to 60 young people, mostly girls, from Lower Austria live and work here. Some stay all day, even on weekends. Boys who do not have a place to sleep may also be allowed to stay.
A grove of maple trees
The existing ensemble of the regional young people’s residential home had evolved over the decades with an administrative building (1890), school, chapel (1960s) and outbuilding. We adapted, enlarged and re-organised it to meet modern requirements and added a meandering building that is 93.30 metres long and up to two storeys high.
This new building responds to the sloping terrain and accentuates the beautiful, and previously underappreciated, green space, dividing it into an intimate park with old maple trees in the south and an area with farm and training gardens in the north.
Safe space
Working and living spaces are divided into smaller, conveniently sized units, creating a personal atmosphere that helps to build trust and form relationships. With their warm parquet floors and single or double bedrooms, own kitchen, living room and terrace, the light-filled spaces for the residential groups provide stability as well as privacy: ‘a wonderful luxury that you wouldn’t normally expect in a place like this’, according to the residents.
Light and peaceful
Adjoining the sheltered courtyards, the ground-level training workshops, such as the kitchen, laundry and hairdresser’s, are open to clients from the town. Visitors can also enjoy coffee and cake in the big dining hall that seats about 100 people. Located towards the front of the new building, it opens to the older part of the complex.
Big façade windows provide views of the lush green surroundings from all rooms, which adds to the light and peaceful atmosphere. As they move on in life, the young residents will hopefully retain the sense of arrival and of home that they have, if only temporarily, experienced here.
View Original