Children’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation

When Fujimoto speaks of a cave, a village or a cloud he is using metaphors. He does not use them as generalizations or in retrospect – the metaphor always captures the very essence of a design. So it was with one of his earlier works, an institution for mentally disturbed children, a commission he got from his father, a psychiatrist.

Anyone seeing the design for the first time is reminded immediately of playfully scattered building blocks, but in fact Fujimoto is evoking a forest. It is a forest where everyone can find a place for oneself, where one can feel sheltered among the trees, while at the same time there are no walls dividing them. It is by no means random with the blocks grouped according to their function: bedrooms, kitchens, offices, treatment and service areas. The boxes are divided into smaller spaces and the two-storey high spaces between them, with raised sections here and there, provide space for communal activities, eating and play. It could be said that this is a single dwelling, albeit one with a total surface area of two and a half thousand square metres. A small forest.