What Porto Dome brings to a site
Porto Dome does not operate care services. It works with property owners, cities and licensed care providers to design the site, structure the partnership, and set the conditions the finished place has to meet.
What we provide
The framework has four parts
Spatial. How the place is laid out — movement, accessibility across the full age range from toddler to a person living with dementia, acoustic separation, daylight, and the design of the shared space where generations actually meet.
Operational. How it runs — roles and responsibilities between the building owner and care providers, daily routines, opening hours aligned to real care shifts (early, late, and night), safeguarding, and governance.
Intergenerational Practice. How the contact itself is designed — voluntary, reciprocal, professionally facilitated, and developmentally appropriate for both ends of the age range. Contact alone changes nothing; this is the part most projects leave to chance.
Implementation. How a site gets from a brief to a working place, and how it is evaluated once it opens.Biophilic Design for Thriving Communities
The implementation process has five parts.
Site and feasibility assessment. Building suitability, local demographic demand, and mapping what childcare and elder support already exist within a 15-minute radius.
Spatial concept and architectural framework. The design brief, spatial layout, and architecture of the shared space where generations actually meet.
Operator and stakeholder model. Structuring the formal operational relationships between the property owner, licensed care providers, and employers.
Implementation and quality framework. Delivery guidance, facilitator training, and the explicit standards the finished site must meet.
Evaluation framework. Setting up rigorous measurement from Day 1, ensuring the first site produces verifiable evidence rather than anecdote.
How we work with you
How a site gets built
A 7-step path from empty space to working intergenerational hub.
Identify the site. A municipal, healthcare, or corporate building already standing.
Assess demand. Map the care gaps and the workforce within a 15-minute radius.
Assemble the partners. Property owner, licensed care operators, and employer.
Design the concept. Apply the spatial and operational standards to the actual building.
Build and activate. Refurbish, and train staff in intergenerational facilitation.
Measure. Evaluate retention, wellbeing, and social outcomes properly.
Replicate. Turn a working site into a repeatable model.
Who is responsible for what
Co-location works because nothing merges.
Care stays entirely with the people licensed to provide it. Porto Dome changes the distance between them and designs what happens where they meet.
Legal & Operational Boundaries:
The Nursery: Stays a licensed nursery, run by its operator under its own regulator, with its own staff, insurance, and liability.
The Elder Day Centre: Stays a licensed day centre, on exactly the same terms.
The Employer: Stays responsible purely for the workplace.
The Compliance Floor:
Childcare and elder care are among the most heavily regulated building types anywhere — and that regulation, not another certificate, is the compliance floor. Nobody takes on someone else's licence, and nobody takes on someone else's risk.
The question everyone asks first
Is it safe, or even appropriate, to bring young children and older people — including those living with dementia — into the same place?
It is the right question. The answer is in the design.
How Safety Is Designed In:
Co-Location Is Not Mixing: Each service keeps its own regulator, trained staff, ratios, and safeguarding regime. Nothing about existing regulation is loosened by proximity.
Zero Substitution: Shared sessions are additional to care, never a substitute for it. Children are never left in the care of older people; older people are never asked to mind children.
Facilitated & Optional: Every interaction is planned, time-limited, and led by trained facilitators with staff from both services present throughout. Participation is always voluntary, and either service's dedicated room is always just a step away.
The Reality of Risk:
Today, families juggle care alone, unsupported, across an entire city. A designed site replaces that isolated risk with something staffed, planned, and accountable — making it the safer arrangement, not the riskier one.
How it is paid for
There is no single bill, because there is no single new service.
Co-location does not create a new cost centre — it changes where existing, already-funded services sit.
How Funding Works Across the Model:
Existing Operations: Each service is funded through its established national mechanisms — childcare via the childcare system, elder day support via long-term care budgets, and the property via the building owner.
What Porto Dome Provides: The genuinely new investment is the design work, partnership structure, and operational framework — which is what Porto Dome is engaged for.
Co-Financing & Innovation Capital: Early sites are strong candidates for public and EU innovation grants, while the intergenerational programme itself aligns with corporate ESG, social-value, and community investment budgets.
Site-Specific Financial Structuring:
Tax relief, social-value obligations, and public co-financing vary by jurisdiction and are mapped out site by site. Our initial conversation identifies which mechanisms apply to your location.
Often the room already exists
What a site needs is often much less than it first appears.
Unlocking Existing Space:
Elder Day Centres: Usually already feature a large, underutilized social room ideal for joint sessions.
Nurseries: Bring dedicated, secure outdoor space directly into the footprint.
The Porto Dome Shift: In many cases, the shared space an intergenerational hub needs is not something to construct from scratch — it is something to open up, make accessible, adapt, and equip with a designed programme and trained facilitation.
Why We Start with an Assessment:
That is why the first step is always a feasibility assessment rather than a heavy building project. We evaluate your existing layout to identify the fastest, lowest-cost path to activation.
How long it lasts
This is not a pilot with an end date.
A nursery does not close after three years, and neither does a day centre. Once a site is running, it is a permanent service operated by the people who already run services like it.
What Is Time-Limited vs. What Is Permanent:
Time-Limited (Porto Dome Support): The upfront work of getting there — site assessment, spatial design, partner structuring, facilitator training, and the initial evaluation period.
Permanent (Local Operations): The day-to-day service delivery, integrated seamlessly into the ongoing local care and property infrastructure.
The first conversation is just a conversation
Bring a building or a question — that is all it takes to start.
Whether you hold an empty floor, manage an active care facility, or simply want to explore how co-location could work in your region, we start with a simple, no-obligation conversation.
