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home and avoid the appearance of a social care facility thanks to the warmth of the interior materials
and the domestic scale of the spaces. Located in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district of Barcelona, an upscale
residential area with single-family houses and private schools, the new facility has been built on the
same plot where the original refuge was located. One of the project‘s main challenges was to replace
an older structure (from 1965) while keeping the existing building, a night centre with a capacity for 60
users, fully operational until the new centre was ready. The new building features both a day centre
and a night centre with the capacity to accommodate 100 homeless women. During the day, the centre
is open to non-residents and provides a range of services, including personal hygiene facilities such
as showers and laundry, food services with three meals a day, health services, social and educational
programme, and organised activities to foster interaction among residents. The night centre, located
on the upper floors, comprises the residents‘ living quarters, which include single, double, and shared
rooms. These living spaces are complemented by intermediate appropriation areas, providing residents
with additional areas for relaxation and socialising. The exterior space of the building is also designed
as an extension of the interior, with outdoor areas accessible to all users of the centre. These outdoor
spaces are conceived as places for connecting with nature, engaging in leisure activities, or simply resting
quietly under a tree, offering a serene environment that enhances the overall experience for the centre’s Lageplan • Site view
inhabitants. Throughout the project process (2017–2023), the aim of the project has been to maximise the
feeling of home and move away from the appearance of a care facility, promoting the connection with
the social and natural environment and the socialisation of its users through the warmth and calmness
of the interior materials and the selection of furniture and lighting of the spaces. In the end, the building
is not a standalone institution anymore, it is organic to the city. The transparency of the ground level
addresses security concerns while visually engaging the community with the area. In addition, the cen-
tre has two mediators that take care of the relationship with the neighbours, as coexistence can generate
tensions, even though the previous structure had the same function. With time (up to 9 months) and
through healing of psychological stresses and wounds, the women begin to feel more integrated into the
city and closer to achieving social and employment reintegration.
Grundriss Erdgeschoss • Ground floor plan
Wood: main material for warmth and well-being

In recent years, the boom in the prefabrication of wooden buildings and the growing ecological aware-
ness have led this construction system to position itself as one of the main options in our country thanks
to its numerous advantages over other construction systems, especially when it comes to projects with
high ecological and efficiency criteria. Apart from the environmental advantages of using wood for the
construction system, the project chooses this material for several reasons: the plot is surrounded by
schools, and building work had to coexist with the functioning of the existing centre, so timber construc-
tion using industrial systems and solutions made it possible to reduce construction times and minimise
noise on the site to lessen its impact; the brief‘s requirement of a 100-bed capacity defines a clear, modu- Grundriss 1. Obergeschoss • Floor plan level +1
lated distribution with 3.4 m spans, optimal for a prefabricated system of CLT timber panels; and the
exposed wood, treated with water-based fireproof varnish, with its warmth and hygroscopic properties,
gives a feeling of domesticity and comfort, one of the main objectives of the project, avoiding the cold
image of a social care facility. This way, the brief is arranged in a clear, modular floor plan thanks to
the construction solution using load-bearing walls of cross-laminated wood. The building is therefore
conceived as a single element, a rectangular prism around 60 m long and 16 m wide, with a maximum
height of 9 m subdivided into three floors. However, the volume is recessed at certain points to generate
loggias, terraces, and other outdoor spaces that create an extrovert building that looks from the inside
outwards. These recessses are intermediate spaces with a human scale but without a specific use that
facilitate socialisation and create the spatial variety of the proposal. CLT panels are sufficiently rigid to Grundriss 2. Obergeschoss • Floor plan level +2
transfer horizontal loads to the walls in both directions, even in areas where the separation between
walls is greatest. In all cases, the cross-laminated wood floors have a dry slab (formed by sanded pla- Fassadendetail • Façade detail
sterboard, a wood fibre insulation system, two gypsum boards and factory-waterproofed paper fibres)
to provide insulation against impact noise, and some areas of the building have a sound-absorbing
false ceiling to improve the acoustic performance of these spaces and to house installations. In addition
to the environmental benefits of using wood, the facility‘s design is based on sustainability criteria
that go beyond energy efficiency during the operational phase and address the building‘s environmen-
tal impact throughout its life cycle. First and foremost, the adopted philosophy was to reduce energy
demand above any other consideration. Demand reduction applies to any category of sustainability and
energy efficiency. Thus, thanks to a number of passive strategies, including excellent insulation, partly
due to the wood, and adjustable awnings that automatically regulate based on temperature and solar
incidence, we have designed a near-zero energy building with BREEAM certification. Even though it is
a public social facility funded 100 per cent by public institutions, the main challenge of the project has
been to design an architecture that can transform the social issue of homelessness through spaces and
atmospheres capable of changing the way of life of its inhabitants, while also eliminating the differences
between a social project and high-end architecture.

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