The scheme seeks to provide structure to an inherently chaotic process of moving to a nursing home by allowing people to move in with their possessions. Instead of treating the new arrival to the nursing home as a blank slate, the resident is able to dwell with the materials that gave their life colour and texture communally. Since the elderly in Spain feel an urge to give back, the scheme features a flea market, a common fixture in Spanish culture, as a means of providing for younger generations.
As the residents live there, they can gradually shed their belongings as and when they want to. This idea of retention of material carries through the architecture as the prominent skeletal buttresses hold up the mares stone cliff face, which is, in itself, formed of ancient skeletal remains. As such, the project draws parallels between the cumulative formation of the site’s geology and the accumulation of possessions over the course of one’s life.
