The expansion and renovation of the Bigues i Riells health center is configured to achieve certain functional and location requirements.
The health center had to be in use every single day.
Therefore, all medical rooms, reception, administration offices and all the other facilities were set up in the new building. The other services were left in the building to reform.
The renovation is integral throughout the interior of the existing building. The roof and the facades are respected in their original state.
The extension is located in a triangular plot of critical dimensions, and in compliance with planning regulations.
FUNCTIONAL CRITERIA
On the ground floor of the new building, the reception area, administration, general medicine rooms, waiting room and part of the technical area are located. On the first floor, the pediatric rooms are located, with a rotated geometry of 90º in relation to the ground floor in order to create a double height space in the general medicine waiting room. This double space allows to illuminate the room with a large window. On the second and third floors, facilities for the air conditioning machines are arranged.
In the existing renovated building, the sanitary classroom, the staff area and general stores are located.
COMPOSITIVE CRITERIA
The design of the new building is not conceived to mimetically relate to the existing building, but is designed autonomously, with a geometric composition that is based in large clumps and big empty areas, except for the openings in the medical rooms that are modulated in a single hole that composes a repetitive sequence, producing facades of volumetric and compositional complexity.
Volumetrically, the new building is modulated in a ground floor that is designed as a large base that rests on the street. Two different parts of the building rest on top of such base, on the one hand, a rotated 90º body that projects onto the site, where pediatric outpatient rooms are located, and the other hand, a double height tower which houses the air conditioning systems. Between the two masses a vacuum is generated, with a large window, which gives overhead light in the waiting room of general medicine.
