Habitar com Sentido: A CASA para a Perturbação do Espetro do Autismo

Abstract

In an increasingly fast-paced and individualised contemporary context, the growing number of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses highlights the need to reconsider how architecture responds to different ways of experiencing the world. Despite increasing awareness of autism and its sensory specificities, significant gaps remain in the creation of spaces capable of supporting autistic individuals and their families throughout life. Within this framework, the home assumes particular importance as a place that fosters dignity, autonomy, and quality of life. A CASA emerged from the desire to understand how architecture can contribute to more sensitive environments, capable of valuing diverse spatial experiences without relying on segregated or overly specialised models. Positioned between housing and support, and between family, collective, and individual life, the design of A CASA explores ways of living together in which care becomes an integral part of everyday life and the community. Conceived for Porto, adjacent to the City Park, A CASA is structured around the ideas of Autism, Cognition, Assessment, Support, and Accomodation. Rather than proposing a unique or definitive solution, it explores more inclusive ways of inhabiting, understanding diversity as a fundamental condition for thinking about architecture and for dwelling with purpose.