Each year, we support at least one pro-bono project, offering our design services to people in need of a helping hand.
If you wonder why, the answer is easy: we are here to help. We see architecture as a way to have a positive impact on communities around us, and to change lives for the better.
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The Charity Project We Are Most Proud Of
What Do We Stand For? What Are Our Values?
The Charity Project We Are Most Proud Of
During the COVID outbreak in 2020, we repurposed a hostel in Barcelona into a shelter for homeless people, where they could also learn new skills to help them re-enter the workforce.
We used our knowledge and skills to restructure the existing hostel, creating temporary places where people could live, as well as communal spaces where they could work and get up-skilled with minimal reconstruction.
As a result, more than 15 people got trained and found their way back to a profession and, ultimately, a better life.
Why Are We Doing This?
As a young ambitious architectural company, we’re keen to improve people’s lives through our designs.
Our practice bases its designs on the principles of people-focused design, sustainability, and contextualisation.
Our multicultural team cares deeply about making a positive impact. We have a history of supporting various social projects and it’s become an aspect of our practice that the entire team is proud of.
In essence, design and architecture are there to solve people’s problems.
Designers and architects can offer their knowledge and skills to contribute to creating infrastructure to foster activities, experiences, and relationships. These can take many forms, our own designs have facilitated learning experiences, innovation activities, social interactions and much more.
We often take it for granted, but we spend an awful lot of our time in buildings and the built environment.
As architects and designers, we are more conscious of that environment and often detect aspects that can be improved, whether in terms of aesthetics or functionality.
Our ideal world is one where designs are optimised in a way that they offer a pleasant and comfortable environment to all people, with minimum impact on the environment.
Bringing this ideal back to reality, design is a costly service and not one that all people have access to.
With our charity work, it is our mission to provide our service to some of those who need it but cannot afford it. This is one of the ways in which we, as a practice, can contribute to improving lives.
While the extent of our charity contribution needs to be proportionate to our capacity, we hope that our pro-bono projects, done in the right way and with a social purpose in mind, can trigger a chain of positive opportunities and impacts for the communities they benefit.
Do you have a project to collaborate on? We’d like to hear from you! Reach us out: info@windsorpatania.com with the title “Charity WPA project”.
What Can We Do?
The charity projects that we consider usually are relatively small but impactful ones.
Examples include creating a new learning center; designing a modular multifunctional meeting space, where many different activities can take place or repurposing an existing building or space with a specific social purpose in mind.
We are keen to work on projects with strong transformational potential and that will have a social impact.
There is a wide variation that would qualify such as the revitalization of an old park or an urban space that is in disrepair or abandoned; the transformation of a children’s playground or sports area; or the redesign of a community garden or a sitting area where people can enjoy a meal together.
What Do We Stand For? What Are Our Values?
Anthropocentric Approach:
Our designs are functional, easy to use, and comfortable as well as aesthetic. We design spaces that work for the people who use them.
Our people-focus is also reflected in the way we work. We differentiate ourselves from other firms with our unique customer journey.
Sustainability:
Sustainability principles are integral to our designs. We specialise in sustainable buildings and built environments.
This is about more than minimising the environmental impact of our designs, encompassing also how people behave in the spaces we create.
Contextualisation:
Our designs are appropriate to their context.
We apply principles of structural and material optimisation or modularity when it’s needed, to achieve the best possible results on a tight budget, as well as imply top-notch technologies when the resources are available to do so.
Conclusion
We’d like to share and offer our knowledge, skills, and experience to create spaces that can have a social impact and that people can truly enjoy.
No matter the size, our focus will be on delivering a design that is comfortable, functional, sustainable, and that enhances the day-to-day experience of its users.
Do you have a project to collaborate on? We’d like to hear from you! Reach us out: info@windsorpatania.com with the title “Charity WPA project”.
If you liked this article and want to learn more about WindsorPatania Architects please get in touch via our website: www.windsorpatania.com.
