Shelter for Homeless Women in Barcelona / Vivas Arquitectos

Above the Kennedy Square in the Sarria-Sant Gervasi neighborhood of Barcelona, on the same site where the former emergency reception center was located, a new facility is being built that includes a day center and a night center with the capacity to accommodate 100 homeless women.

This interior renovation by ARA-la Studio completely reimagined the original 1946 hipped roof bungalow while including a minor addition and ADU conversion. Having lived in the home for nearly a decade prior, the homeowners intimately understood their needs, as well as the limitations of their urban corner lot, allowing them to maximize every possible square inch on a modest budget.

The 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, one of the most prestigious honors in the field, celebrates projects that not only exhibit architectural excellence but also profoundly improve the quality of life for their communities. Among this year's winners is the West Wusutu Village Community Centre, a project in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, by Chinese architect Zhang Pengju. In an era when rural areas often face social fragmentation and a loss of identity, this community center offers a powerful counter-narrative.

The project features diagonal views toward a lake belonging to the La Moraleja golf course in Madrid. Given that the size of this location allowed for it, a home was proposed that develops primarily on a single floor. The daytime area is organized into two volumes of different heights that shift in relation to each other, creating a sheltered terrace that faces the landscape, oriented southeast. The main body has a height of almost one and a half floors. A third structure houses the nighttime area, positioned in such a way that it has its own more private outdoor space.