Day-care Institution for Alcoholic Patients – My Diploma Thesis
My motivation at choosing this topic for diploma thesis was that I wanted to deal with an important and socially responsible topic and give a solution for it. So i chose to design a day-care institution for alcoholic patients.
This disease is incurable: who is alcoholistic, remains that till his/her lifelong. In Hungary 10% of the population is alcoholistic. This number is increasing every year and there are more and more young people among them. No perfect cure has been developed yet. The doctors don’t learn about the treatment and they don’t deal with this disease until the patient asks for specific help. But the treatment stucks with prescribing some medicine and sending the patient into hospital, where there isn’t enough time and staff for further treatment. Hospital treatment therefore isn’t effective at all.
The most successful method of healing is group therapy. The patients dawn on their problems through the others’ different stories and their behavior. Therefore my aim was to design a building, where it is possible to co-cure effectively.
The planning area is in Veszprém, an empty side on the borderline of the downtown area. It was important for me to integrate the similar function that exists on the outskirts of the city center to the downtown area because of better accessibility and because of the people’s attitude.
Alcohol is part of people’s everday life, in certain situations it is “required” to consume, but people have very negative opinion about alcoholistics.
The more this subject gets into public consciousness, the more people’s attitude changes.
The site is located in the city center, you only need to turn down a narrow street to reach it. It is situated in the downtown area, but it doesn’t have a direct overlook, it’s out of sight.
The area slopes in two directions nearly 5 meters, this made it clear that the building – at least partly – will be underground.
Narrow streets, small lanes and terrain stairs are typical of the surrounding installation. The buildings are very diverse in style, shape, and also in their heights.
Historic buildings are located on one side of the street, towards the castle hill, on the other side of the street are buildings and detached houses of the twentieth century. So the area doesn’t have a consistent style.
At the beginning of the analysis and the beginning of forming the mass of the building, I decided to align to the environment with taking some of the local specialties. I pulled the mass away the neighbouring building and connected the street with the steps of the rear part of the site. This resulted in a new traffic line, a lane.
The location was an infill between two buildings, but the neighbouring building had windows to my site, so this also explained drawing the mass of the building aside.
The building actually combines 3 functions. First is the clinic with medical condition survey and assistance. Second, the main function is the day-care, and the third is the non-alcoholic bar.
The day care is open from morning till night for everyone. There is opportunity to supply basic needs (washing, bathing, etc), and especially to participate in programs of social togetherness. The nurses will help you to find work, they give medical care, and help you set up a care plan.
The building has a large lecture hall to hold conferences, group discussions and meetings.
The rooms and the groups of rooms are closely connected to each other.
The ambulatory part fulfills tasks of health care, disease prevention, healing, health, social services, and rehabilitation. For this medical rooms and group rooms are needed.
In the day-care it is possible to stay during the day, to wash, bathe, eat, spend time with watching TV, playing games or other programs. This requires a very big space – living room, kitchen, dining room, laundry room, bathroom, sports lounge.
The alcohol-free pub is separate from the main institution in the surface, so anyone visit it, through a separate entrance as well from the day-care. This function has been included in the concept, because the patients haven’t got any other place open at night for social interaction without being tempted by alcohol.
The different units have got toilets, social blocks for the workers, storage spaces, etc.
The non-alcoholic pub connects to the building only below the ground. Its visible form of the pub is different from the larger building, it corresponds with the surrounding buildings. With that I wanted to confirm that this function is open for not only alcoholic patients, but everyone. This way the pub is connected more to the environment and to the people of the street.
There are large glazed surfaces on the building, the insight to the building /transparency of the building is stuctured. Direct insight is only insured, where there isn’t any intimate function and vice versa.
The soul of the building is the garden enclosed by the house. The garden flows into the day-care room.
The building is made of reinforced concrete. This function requires a stable, solid fit, which suggests that this building is a secure point.
The building is enveloped by two types of material. One is the glass-fiber reinforced concrete which is rising from the walls to the roof and is perforated in some places. It flows to the interior space from outside and breaks off the the boundaries of the spaces. The other material is the off-white plaster.
2012