Innovative day center in Derio that offers social and occupational support to people with autism. 24 people with an autism spectrum disorder receive support through an organized and coordinated set of actions carried out by a multidisciplinary professional team of 7 people, aimed to facilitate their personal and social development, their autonomy and their social and labor inclusion through activities such as gardening and agriculture, among others.
Regional
Spain
Basque Country, Biscay Council, City Hall of Derio
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): APNABI Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Ignacio Last name of representative: Ruiz Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: Managing Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Sabino Arana Etorbidea, 69 Town: Bilbao Postal code: 48012 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 944 75 57 04 E-mail:natxo@apnabi.org Website:https://www.apnabi.eus/
The Provincial Council of Bizkaia and Apnabi Autismo Bizkaia have launched a new center in Derio for people with an autism spectrum disorder. It is an innovative and versatile center that was born as a day care center, and aspires to host many other inclusion opportunities for its users, especially linked to employability. The center, which began its activity last October, offers support, from Monday to Friday and also some weekends, to adult people with autism through a professional team of four people.
The intervention principles of the center are linked to a healthy life and the well-being of people, support for personal autonomy, learning and experiences for inclusion, the promotion of community participation and networking. In addition, in this case, the Derio center will be a support point to facilitate the socio-labour activation of users, through professional certificates, innovative international exchange programs for people with disabilities or work practices of various kinds.
The facilities, located on a plot granted by the Derio City Council in the Aldekone Goikoa area, have an innovative architectural design linked to energy sustainability, ecological and environmental awareness, they have 5,000 m2 of natural outdoor space for crops or leisure activities and a 425 m2 greenhouse-type construction with an interior “plaza”, orchards and seedbeds, multipurpose spaces, living areas, kitchen and dining room, among others. Thanks to the dry construction system, its creation has been cheaper, faster and more efficient than other more traditional processes.
The building also meets physical and cognitive accessibility criteria and is a friendly venue for people with autism and their specific requirements. It will develop dynamics related to environmental awareness and sustainable development through gardening and agriculture. Likewise, community partitioning and social recognition will be promoted through dynamics such as agricultural product markets or co
Social
Inclusion
Educative
Ecological
Sustainability
The proposed architecture responds to concepts related to ecological awareness, respect for the environment and total sustainability (energy, environmental, social, cultural, and economic). The new building seeks the integration of the center and the group of people with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) in the municipality, opening up with the different exchange-events to the citizens of Derio, but also provides for the training of its users for their future entry into the labor market.
The building program is divided into a large outdoor space that functions as a "square / plaza" and a series of "interior" workshops with a CLT wooden structure where related educational activities will be carried out, a multipurpose space, a living and resting space, a kitchen, a dining room and indoor and outdoor common spaces.
The project proposes a volume of workshops within a greenhouse volume. This system implies several advantages for the whole, from a spatial and sustainability point of view.
On the one hand, the creation of an interior/exterior square/plaza space expands the space available to users and thus achieves greater flexibility of use. In fact, this place may have a more private and interior character connected with the training/education activities of the APNABI organization, or a more open and public character when it comes to generating relationships and exchanges with the public, Municipality of Derio and its citizens.
The building has a "bioclimatic envelope", a system comparable to that of an agricultural greenhouse that regulates the capture of solar radiation and ventilation by means of automatic openings and closings. The outer skin adapts automatically, opening or closing depending on the temperature, humidity, wind and external solar radiation to achieve the best bioclimatic conditions at all times. In this way, an intermediate space is achieved with a temperature between 16º and 30ºC, which acts as a thermal cushion and helps to maintain a comfortable temperature in the work spaces, reducing energy demand and improving the temperature inside the totally natural way.
An approach of this type forms the appropriate scenario so that together with all the related educational programs, greater opportunities for development and growth can be given to a group as sensitive as that of people with ASD. Thus, Apnabi's mission of providing support and strategies that guarantee a comprehensive and personalized response to people with ASD is fulfilled, which facilitates their personal and social development within the framework of their daily life and in a collaborative manner.
If we talk about the citizens of the city of Derio, they will have the opportunity to get to know people with the autism spectrum up close, since Apnabi intends to generate exchange dynamics with the municipality.
The young people of the center will participate in tasks of conditioning gardens and squares, they will be able to attend both sports and cultural municipal centers, they will organize markets on weekends with the vegetables and flowers that they grow themselves; they will be able to teach the young people of the town to cultivate these vegetables and flowers.
All this type of exchange tasks will help to dispel the possible stigma of the population towards this group, making a more tolerant, more open, more participatory society, ultimately building a better society.
The Association of Families of People with Autism in Bizkaia, APNABI, is a non-profit entity, declared of public interest, aimed at specialized care for people with ASD. After almost 45 years of experience, today it has 1,500 associated families.
APNABI offers comprehensive and individualized care through a team of 270 professionals. Thus, it guarantees assistance in various areas ranging from early detection and diagnosis, early attention, education, attention to adult life, leisure and free time, employment or housing. All this in order to improve the quality of life, personal development and social inclusion of people with autism.
The construction of this new resource is the result of the agreement reached between the association and the Derio City Council in January 2020 for the concession of a public plot in the Aldekone Goikoa area. The local Consistory promoted the APNABI proposal as it considered the project very "useful and beneficial" for the town, with the close relationship of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia for the development of the project. Along the same lines, it should be noted that APNABI has obtained financial support from the ONCE Foundation and the BBK Fundazioa.
To carry out this project, an interdisciplinary team was formed that could respond to a whole series of questions related to the autism spectrum, agriculture, gardening and construction. In this sense, a whole series of previous meetings were held between architects, psychologists, biologists, educators and sustainability experts.
One of the highlights of the initiative was precisely this transversal view of an interdisciplinary team, where everyone was able to contribute their knowledge, adding and managing to create a space that is most suitable for the purpose that has been built, which is neither more nor less. a training space for young people with autism.
We believe that this initiative has many possibilities of being replicated, obviously the new place and context must be taken into account, but both the methodology used in all fields, as well as all the part related to sustainability and construction processes, such as the experience in agriculture and gardening workshops could easily be applied in other possible projects of this type.
We think that the most important thing about the methodology applied to the project is how, after the different meetings between the different experts, ideas emerged that ended up materializing in a "building", a peculiar building that resembles a greenhouse but is really a catalyst for a group of society as important as the one affected by the autism spectrum.
To be global, you first have to experiment with the local, in this sense we understand this project to be "glocal", an hybrid between local and global, since it has enough potential to be replicated in a global context, due to the type of solution constructive, it is aimed at temperate climate contexts, in harsher climatic contexts, the envelope should be different from the greenhouse solution and more similar to that of an humbraculus.
The space has just been inaugurated recently, but the results are already visible, the team of educators has told us that the space is a success, young people find the security and privacy they require in the wooden classrooms, but if they want to expand, they have the possibility to go out to the "plaza" space and run and jump following in a safe space.
The municipality has also shown its interest in the project, closing agreements with the association so that young people can use the different municipal facilities, making the autism spectrum visible to society, ridding this group of a false appreciation by society.
