CMS Villaverde
The Villaverde health center is part of a process we call 3x1, or "why" is that we have built 3 times the same building. The beginning goes back to an unusual competition called for the construction of two identical buildings (the same customer, even functional program and same budget) in two different places in Madrid (Usera and San Blas) whose common characteristic was their lack of relevance. Our winning proposal was one building whose formal and functional autonomy was enough to "exist" independently of the site, a building misplaced. We were interested to note the value and interior space, and thinking about lecorbuseriana idea of "reconciliation of opposites", putting a tight image and the outside rotunda off the interior light and ambiguous. On the occasion of a second contest for the site of Villaverde had the opportunity to verify that the spatial model and the solution in new plant were viable, although in this case in an urban situation more committed to the street alignment and building next to the pedestrian. For the third time and equally to the above, the health center program is developed extensively in a single floor.
The various program units are ordered by generating a sparse irregular orthogonal grid, where 13 yards staggered distributed between public and private placements through three (non)-parallel corridors. The corridor dissolved, ceases to exist as a linear structure of traditional connection, because the alternative management of empty spaces and hospitality towards the public allows a weak relationship between the coordinates "x" and "y" of space. As opposed to this light system, atomized by the courts, the rotunda and impenetrable facade is conceived as a mass of glass modulated continuous and blind. Compared to their twin buildings of the cms Villaverde resolve the contrast between two opposite situations in a more smooth, which is expressed by the use of a constructive tectonic: metal, glass and polycarbonate enclosures with varying degrees of opacity and transparency .
The building from outside is destined to camouflage where the white glass reflects the surrounding space without allowing an interior-exterior visual relationship yet remains almost disappearing. From inside the contact with the outside through the vertical closure is eased from the world of shadow, shadows cast on the translucent walls of what happens on the other hand, pedestrians, trees, etc.
The idea of the impenetrability of the glass facade is reinforced at two levels: on one hand, the different sizes of glass panels arranged without forming a grid, combining different heights and widths with the desire not to reveal floor heights and looking for some balance between horizontal and vertical. On the other hand, seeks to solve the continuity between two types of glass, opaque white and translucent white, using a simple mathematical rule of greatest common divisor.
The three panels are multiples of 25cm wide, which check relationships among the type b = 2a, c = 3a, c = a + b, 2b = a + c. The absence of holes in vertical panels of exterior glass enclosure makes the interior-exterior relationship building occurs vertically. Inside clear glass without woodworking but do not define patios horizontal holes in the facade of the outer shell of the building and creates a vertical relationship that generates an isotropic interior space and a fifth facade, covered buildings seen from surrounding houses. Inside the transparent qualities of glass and mirror visions multiply reflected symmetry, likewise the qualities of reflection and diffuse lighting of translucent polycarbonate vertical panels help create a spacious and luminous interior environment with a certain sense atmospheric .
