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Vitamins on the Rooftop [Translation of an adapted and shortened version of the article “Vitaminas en la terraza”, by Daniel Martín, published in th
the online version of El Mundo on 9 May 2015]
Around 7,000 children are hospitalized in the “12 de Octubre Hospital” in Madrid every year, many of whom have to stay there for long periods. In order to brighten their conditions,
Juegaterapia
foundation
has
recently inaugurated a playspace built on the hospital’s rooftop. Focused on palliative care for
minors
who
suffer
from
cancer,
Juegaterapia now aims to make the young inpatients’ new home more enjoyable. The 800 m2 green area hosts a playspace surrounded by trees and plants. Its design was inspired by the children’s drawings, which they used to illustrate what their ideal playspace would look like. ‘Talking to the
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children was vital if we wanted them to feel the garden to be their own, a secret place, a landscape able to empower their imagination, a place where they could dream, where their senses would delight in the contact with
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nature’, says Belén Moneo, architect of
publications like Telva magazine, have also
Moneo Brock Studio, who provided her
collaborated.
design pro-bono for this project.
During
the
opening,
Mónica
Esteban,
Among the most remarkable elements of the
president and founder of Juegaterapia,
playspace one could mention are a twisting
remarked
path for toy motorbike races, a small soccer
Juegaterapia’s raison d’être. ‘By opening this
field and a colorful 6-meter-high geodesic
new garden we are giving all children
dome that offers shade as well as privileged
inpatients the chance to feel glad, to play
views over Spain’s capital. ‘Throughout this
outdoors and to be able to face their
project we always tried to think as children
treatments with as much energy as possible’,
would, and once in their shoes, we realized
she affirmed before announcing they would
every element in the garden becomes a
continue developing initiatives of this kind.
that
children’s
happiness
potential toy to play with’, explains the architect
about
the realization
of the
children’s ideas. This project, which started to be built in November last year, was financed through private donations, mostly through an SMS campaign sponsored by the soccer coach Vicente del Bosque. Other foundations, such as those of Real Madrid or Iker Casillas, as well as companies like Microsoft or Ford and
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is