ADDICTION REHABILITATION CENTER (graduation project)

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ABSTRACT

CONCEPT

This project introduces the concept of a community addiction rehabilitation and wellness center in one of the most notorious, unhealthy urban environments in Alexandria, Ezbet El-Matar. This is to demonstrate how architecture can create a healing environment within a socio-economic depressed community.

AIMS

The addiction rehabilitation center aims to set the society free from the bondage of drugs and addiction. It is to create a community free of social crimes, psychological and physical disorders, waste of money and all insecurities caused by drug abuse. It targets our youths, gives them a helping hand and lets them rekindle their self appreciation and self motivation. It aims to make them re-explore themselves and invest their powers more efficiently.

OBJECTIVES

The project explores the role of architectural technology in therapy and ultimately introduces a highly adaptive system that provides therapeutic environment needed by the users and allows for interaction control between patients and public.

SITE CHOICE

This location aims to create a design that uses “nature as therapy through architecture” with the implementation of various concepts, including a planter buffer zone, the lake serving as a pleasant view, landscape integration with buildings and urban filters that defuse the harsh urban context of Ezbet El-Matar. It is carefully chosen so it provides the controlled access and privacy required, yet integration within the community to result in a decrease of addiction relapse in the area. It therefore promotes the challenge of creating the therapeutic effects that a rural environment provides within an urban context.

CONCLUSION

Investigations were made using research, analysis and personal experience narrations. The investigations unpack the gradual transition process of therapy which allows to create a design that combines the various stages of rehabilitation within one centralized facility. This facility is meant to help the community heal and prevent further damages caused by drug abuse through the power of architecture.