Student Portfolio: Renovation of a home, designed and focused for a child with autism

Autism is currently diagnosed in 1 in every 68 individuals and in 1 in every 42 male children, making it more common than combined cases of paediatric cancer, diabetes and AIDS. It is present in any racial, ethnic and social group, and it is four times more frequent in boys than in girls. Autism affects a person’s ability to communicate and relate to others. It is also associated with routines and repetitive behaviours, such as obsessively arranging objects or following very specific routines.

The renovation project seeks to address, through architecture, a set of criteria and design guidelines that respond to conditions of psychological disorders, with the aim of improving the quality of life of families affected by these conditions. For the proposal, different variables are overlapped: architectural typology, climatic conditions, family needs, understanding of the disorder and materiality.