Interview
After Carmela of the death was murdered, the house became in the
possession of a young boy, who just left the house of his parents to start a
life on his own. The boy just finished his master-degree in economics and found
a job at a small accounting firm at the centre of Granada.
His twin brother has down syndrome and lived at that moment still with
his parents back in Murcia. But at the age of 24 he started to feel the need to
leave his parents and life on it’s own. His parents had the feeling that it
still was a little to early for him to leave the home. In fact, for them it
would always be too early for him to leave home, they were so afraid... but the
idea of independence was persistent on his son's head. So his parents came up
with the idea for him to go live with his brother in Granada. If he could live
with his brother, his parents would feel a lot safer than if he’d live on his
own. Living with his brother for a while would be the perfect first step for
him to leave the house and become independent. So it didn’t took long before he
decided to go and live with his brother. As his brother worked all day, he
decided to start working as a volunteer at the petting zoo.
After living together happily for 2,5 years his brother got married and
decided to leave the house to go and live with his wife. He felt really bad for
his twin brother because this house was the only thing he had left. After
consultation with his wife, they decided to donate the house to his brother
with a usage and admistration cession for the Down People organisation in
Granada which his brother was part of. In this way his brother was able to keep
living in the apartment with overview from the organization. The only agreement
that was made was for the organization to be able to use several of his rooms
for group activities. The organization became so enthusiastic about the house
that they decided to buy the other three houses as well, as soon as the
possibility arrived.
So now the organization was the complete owner off the
whole building and housed multiple younger people with down-syndrome. At this
point the organization asked several younger architects to redesign the house
to make it as well “liveable” for the people living there but also useable for
the organization to use the space for organising activities for small groups up
to +/- 16 people.