Residential home for the Elderly in Pòrtol, Marratxí
The Architectural Proposal for the construction of the residential home for the elderly in Pòrtol consists of the implantation of a building of compact typology, that is, ground floor and basement and a square floor plan, structure around four gardened yards in its interiors.
The plot bounds to the north with an archeologically protected surrounding conserving its aspect thanks to a green area packed with trees. It is being put forward to link both plots from the special treatment of the green spaces, as a single forest unit. Tree are enlisted as key elements in the proposal, their presence is found either in the South-Eastern and North-Eastern facades, or as well in the interior yards.
The residential home for the elderly is embedded within the urban landscape naturally and discreetly with a clear vocation of formal coherence and contention. It has the singular scale that identifies public buildings but with a discreet and accurate language.
With a modulated and defined facade for the alternance of a single system of openings in vertical composition, that when they are multiplied in the facades provide the contrast to the horizontality to the constructed volume and that allows its insertion into the environment on a correct scale.
The programme of the building is organised in four functional blocks: three destined for residential units, areas equipped with specific services, direction and administration, and the fourth, located in the lower basement floor, which is dedicated to general services and staff. The residential area is distributed in five modules of rooms. Four of those modules are placed in the ground floor and first floor, around the two yards set at the far ends of the building. The fifth modulo occupies the first floor of the surface located between the two central yards.
The yards enable natural light, cross air flow and views into all chambers and distribution zones over a highly rated exterior backdrop. The treatment of the glass in the perimetral facades, provide an excellent relation to interior space with the garden and allows the possibility of an easy visual control of the private room modules. The two central yards are extended to the basement in a way that the service rooms also enjoy natural light and ventilation flowing in.
The project has been written from the environmental criteria and the maximum energetic efficiency attempting to converge to the threshold of a building with null energetic requirements. By obtaining the A grade of energetic qualification, the intervention prioritises passive strategies over the active ones and reduces its energetic footprint, guaranteeing the building overall efficiency.
