Modern child homes „Second Family”
This concept is a complete redesign of the traditional orphanage model into a safe, dignified and development-oriented environment for children who have lost the chance for a stable home. Instead of large dormitories and institutional routines, each building is conceived as a vertical micro-neighbourhood: private rooms, small family-style apartments, and full access to education, health care, sport and culture in one place. The aim is not only to protect children, but to give them the same structural advantages that middle-class families give their own kids — stability, attention, options, and a real path into adult life.
Each home is designed as a six-storey U-shaped building. In the two shorter wings, floors 1–6 are dedicated to children’s apartments: on every floor several identical flats, each with three individual rooms with small private bathrooms and a shared living space with sofa area, TV, fridge and basic kitchen facilities. In the long central wing, floors 1–6 house larger two- or three-room apartments for caregivers and their partners, so that carers actually live in the building and form long-term, emotionally present relationships with the children. The ground floor holds shared infrastructure: canteen, sports hall, gym, small cinema, rooms for extracurricular activities, and offices for psychologists, therapists and a general practitioner.
The operational model reverses the usual “too many children, too few adults” ratio. Staffing is calculated from the child’s perspective: one caregiver for every six children over six years old; one for every three children under six; and one dedicated caregiver for each group of three infants, who live together with the caregiver in their apartment. The homes are heavily mobility-enabled: each has two coaches, several 9-seater vans and small cars for caregivers, allowing frequent trips, holidays and everyday logistics without dependence on external institutions. When the vehicles are not in use, they can be rented out to generate additional income for the home.
Support is designed as a continuum, not something that ends at age 18. Children receive structured psychological care, personal development programmes, coaching in choosing education paths and professions, and access to scholarships so they can study at universities if they wish. For young adults leaving the home, the system provides access to subsidised rental apartments reserved specifically for graduates of the programme, so they do not fall straight from protection into homelessness or precarious work.
The model is intended to be funded and maintained by a network of European companies as a long-term social commitment rather than charity — with a target of up to 1,000 identical homes across Europe. In return, society receives fewer marginalised young people, lower long-term social costs, and a generation of adults who grew up in an environment that taught safety, responsibility and possibility instead of abandonment. My role in this concept was to design the full physical layout, staffing logic, mobility layer and long-term transition pathways as one coherent system that can be replicated city by city.
