A
Reception
settlement for immigrants and refugees
This is about the idea of a temporary housing center for immigrants and refugees, consisting of prefabricated
minimal rooms and
little houses of 2 or 3
rooms, and a few common services for a total of 260-270 guests.
It is laid out in the shape of a cross, in plan,
determined by two rectilinear walkways, leading to the rooms and little houses,
which
cross each other in a central area where some common services
are located.
The whole thing, which means the rooms, the little
houses, the walkways, the common services, the entrance halls are elevated 53
cm. (about
At each end of one of the two arms is located a
reception hall, one alternative to the other, as it is actually possible to
enter the
center from the
two sides indifferently, and to follow the walkway in one of the two directions
as far as the place of interest. In this
manner the opportunity
is given to have an alternate flow of movement, which will possibly make the
settlement a place of lively
circulation from one to the
other end, in both ways. The two receptions consist of an entrance hall with a
welcoming desk, and
some service rooms
beside it: these are, at the northern end, a living-salon with couches, tables,
stools, armchairs, TV-media cor-
ner, and a
bar, with its own counter and a few tables and stools; at the other end,
instead, there is a room for reading newspapers
and magazines, and a bigger space meant as a little
media center, with shelves for holding books, CD’s,
DVD’s, tables and stools
for reading and
listening, and some installations for the use of computers and internet. These
common rooms beside the receptions
are meant as an
integrating part of the settlement, but also accessible from outside, as they
are provided with both interior entrances
from the reception
hall, and independent entrances.
At the intersection of the two walkways, other common
services are located as well, such as two common kitchens with dining are-
as, two rooms with
washing machines for the laundry, and two shower rooms (the rooms and houses
have no cooking services or
showers of their own).
These facilities are available only for the guests of the settlement, all of
them.
The rooms are aligned along the walkway that leads
from one entrance hall to the other, and which for this reason constitutes the
main direction of the
housing center (north-south), whereas the little
houses are set along the walkway perpendicular to that one
(east-west). The rooms are
single (for 1 person), double (with a parental bed or a bunkbed)
and triple. In the parental rooms, there
is space where one
may place a cradle for a baby. They all are equipped with beds, wardrobes and
bathrooms, with a sink, a WC
and a bidet. They are
all facing the opposite side of the walkway.
The little houses consist of two or three rooms,
according to how one prefers to arrange the interior spaces, of which, however,
one
will basically be a
living-room, and the other one, or the other ones, bedrooms. There is also a
bathroom with a sink, a WC and a
bidet. For cooking or
showering, both the inhabitants of the rooms and of the little houses will
refer to the common services at the
crossing of the walkways.
The rooms and the little houses, as well as the
reception halls and the common services, are screened by vertical walls of OSB
(Ori-
ented Strand
Board) wood panels, or particle boards, forming two layers which hold in
between them an aeration space and insula-
ting panels of
newspapers bonded together with plaster. The bearing framework, as far as the
rooms and houses are concerned,
consists of vertical posts
of plastic material, and a frame of wood strips; as for the entrance halls,
instead, the posts may either be
of plastic or metal.
The wood panels will be conveniently covered with sheets of a plastic material
on the outside, and painted or left
bare inside the rooms,
and covered with a waterproof plastic material in the bathrooms. Such panels
will also constitute the interior
partitions, only with a
lesser thickness and without any insulation. The floors consist of principal
beams made of plastic and secon-
dary ones
of wood, or else plastic as well, of wood boards and of a wood parquet
flooring.
I thought that the whole flooring might be basically uniform,
that is made of the same wood parquet in light-color
both in the recept-
ion halls, and in the
common rooms at the sides of them (salon, bar, reading room, media center), and in the exterior walkways, and
in the rooms and
houses, uninterruptedly. In the reception building at the northern end, the
entrance porch outside, the service rooms
of the bar and the
hall, the public toilet have the same flooring as the bathrooms of the homes
and the public one at the other end,
that is of plastic
sheets in violet color.
The interior walls of the common rooms are bare, or
painted, or covered with carton. Those of the toilets, both the public ones at
the
reception ends, and the
ones in the homes, are covered with plastic in the ochre color
up to a height of 1.40 mt., or in full height.
3D iso view, from north-west 3D iso view, from
south-east
3D iso view, from south-west
From above from north, From
the northern reception hall
From west
toward the
northern reception hall
From west
From the other reception hall
View
from a room
Entrance from
north
Entrance from north
Northern reception hall In the hall, toward the exit
The salon of the northern entrance
The northern salon The media center
of south. entrance,
entering from the hall
The media center The
walkway, from south toward north Toward the northern
entrance
The central area of the common services Crossing of the walkways
Shower-rooms are in red
Common kitchen and washing-room View from
the dining area,
Common kitchen with dining area
toward the service center
The other kitchen with dining area An opening in the walkway A
single room
A parental bedroom
A triple room The living-room
of a little house
A double room of a little house A single room
of a little house
Plan of a single room
Plan of double or
Plan of typical little house
Plan of the crossing of the walkways
triple room with
common services
Plan of northern entrance
Plan of southern entrance