Porteles is an intergenerational welfare complex combining a nursery, preschool and elderly day-care centre with a public neighbourhood park, designed for the Municipality of Chania, Crete. Awarded 1st Distinction in a Greek national architectural competition, the project explores how architecture can support care, dignity and social cohesion across generations.

Rooted in research on intergenerational care - first piloted in Japan in the 1970s - the proposal recognises care facilities as vital civic infrastructure. Bringing children and seniors together supports empathy, wellbeing and a sense of belonging, while challenging age segregation and social isolation.

The design process was informed by questionnaires and interviews with kindergarten teachers, parents of young children, and users and staff of elderly day-care facilities, ensuring that spatial decisions responded directly to lived experience, daily routines, and care needs.

Architecturally, Porteles draws from the clarity, modesty and economy of traditional Cretan architecture, reinterpreted through contemporary, low-impact construction. A linear colonnade - the Porteles - forms a shaded public threshold, organising entrances, mediating between public and private uses, and stitching the complex into its neighbourhood. Three simple rectilinear volumes house the nursery, shared dining and elderly centre, arranged to maximise southern orientation, cross-ventilation and outdoor connection.

Landscape is integral to the social life of the project. A sequence of outdoor spaces - from protected children’s courtyards to a shared garden (Kipalaki) and a public neighbourhood park - enables daily interaction between generations and the wider community. Growing, cooking and learning become shared rituals, reinforcing care as a collective act.

The nursery follows Reggio Emilia principles, treating architecture as the “third teacher”. Flexible classrooms, inhabitable walls and a playful circulation spine encourage exploration, autonomy and learning through movement. The elderly centre is conceived as a pavilion - open, shaded and welcoming - designed to support autonomy, social life and dignity.

Porteles proposes architecture as a quiet but powerful framework for care: socially rooted, climatically responsive and deeply connected to place