EDU LOPEZ ARCHITECTS
Socio Health Center.
Location: Plasencia, Spain
Date: Oct 2019 - Dec 2019
Typology: Healthcare
Size: 3.510 sqm
Status: International Competition
Client: Ministry of Health and Social Services of Spain
Collaborators:
What are we supposed to do so that it doesn’t look like a hospital, but works like one?
Since the patients are limited, we set out to design a diversified building, almost as if it were a small city with its three neighborhoods (with streets, squares, gardens, public services and residential neighborhoods that can be isolated...or not). We seek to create an environment that allows patients to have the greatest possible autonomy but with constant vigilance. We make all this possible through certain functional considerations and programmatic decisions that lead us to the design process of the building and its functional and geometric resolution.
Exterior view
1_Placement on a plot: We do not intend for it to be a building completely unconnected with the psychiatric hospital in front, we want it to have a connection with it and for this we use its right angles but inverting its shape, that is, we create a solid volume instead of creating a volume with branches, to avoid those longitudinal corridors.
2_Volume compression: One of the decisions that we have had to think about first is whether to create a more compact building on two floors or create a swell and expand it on one floor. We opted for a floor for two parameters: the first parameter is to create that city mentioned above and the second parameter is economic, since we would save on budget, not creating complex foundations or below ground, and avoiding vertical communication such as elevators. and stairs
3_Modulation: We create a base modulation from a 7x7 meter structural grid in such a way that we can invert the rooms and rotate them 90º. Furthermore, creating a uniform structural grid simplifies costs since all elements would be produced in series of the same size.
Lobby view
4_Prefabrication: This project is designed so that 85% of the spaces are prefabricated and industrialized in the workshop, in such a way that its execution would be more controlled and would be done in a shorter time, reducing, in turn, production costs. Thus, in the building, we can prefabricate the rooms, hallways, bathrooms, and patios, all of them in three units based on the 7x7 grid.
5_Privacy filter: The project is structured with two bands facing each other. A first and totally public access band and another totally private rear band where those spaces excluded to the general public and residents are located, in such a way that between the two the residential and semi-private spaces are located, thus creating a filter of privacy transversal to the building, from public to private (internal circulation)
Bedroom type 1 view
Bedroom type 2 view
6_Esponjamiento: We want that micro-city functioning and for this we resort to incorporating lighting patios and rooms in order to create a large central patio. These patios create a swelling in the volume and give us hierarchy and order in the program. These patios, to which all the rooms face, serve as a leisure and outdoor living space for users, allowing them to socially interconnect with each other. Each room has its own individual patio
7_Centralization: We want to avoid those long hallways, where the nursing station is to one side and is not able to monitor all the rooms. To avoid this, we have centralized the nursing core so that it supplies all the residential units in a fully controlled manner and reducing the distance between residents and nursing.
Modular bedrooms
8_Differentiation: The volume, externally, is differentiated with two skins, a first skin that marks the access volume. This skin is made of dark, almost black, treated wood. It is an inert element that welcomes the building and is accentuated by a large canopy. The second skin is a copper-colored metal lattice that runs along the entire perimeter and varies its height. This skin creates a unit in the building like a tape that wraps a package, which hides elements such as doors or patios.
Axonometric view
*Caring for caregivers (Living rooms): These are spaces for relaxation and rest of the staff who work in the hospital center. Due to their intense physical and mental work, this space is necessary, fully linked to the control islands for possible health emergencies.
*Take care of everyone (nursing): These are the spaces that are also closely linked to the control islands where patients are cared for and attended to in a personalized and individual way. There is an entire visual layout of this element so that it is totally recognizable by any user of the center.
*Self-care (Bathrooms) They are individual elements that form an autonomous system. With closed and opaque boxes whose interior, always humid, has the necessary services for the health care of disabled people, both mentally and physically.