The Children’s Home of the Future is a pioneering project for an entirely new type of 24-hour care centre for marginalized children. CEBRA’s concept “Our House” combines the traditional home’s safe environment with new ideas and conceptions of what a children’s home is and which needs it should fulfil. Thus, the project takes the familiar basic shapes of the typical Danish home as its starting point: the classic pitched-roof house and the dormer motif. By using the shapes in a new and playful way the design marks the house as an out of the ordinary place, which at the same time is recognized as a dwelling with a safe and homely environment.

“Our House” is basically organized as four interconnected houses in order to reduce the building’s scale and to create self-contained, varied units for the different groups of residents. The quartered shape is modified by the distinctive dormer profiles, which grow into and out of the individual houses, are turned upside down and even rise to form an observation tower. This flexible concept gives the residents the opportunity to set their own mark on the arrangement, décor and use of these ‘bonus spaces’ according to needs and activities.

The building’s rational organization ensures short distances and proximity between the different units so that the personnel always are close to every resident. Thus, the personnel’s working procedures are incorporated effectively in the daily routines, thereby freeing more time for taking care of the children – more home, less institution.