Geriatric centres should be optimistic places appealing to live in or to visit. The idea is to create a characteristic atmosphere in a vital space where spare time prevails and where residents spend the last years or months of their lives.
The first condition is to get a building of 6000 m2, plus 6000 m2 of gardens, with the same budget of that one of 3000 m2 required in the bases of the competition back in 2002.
The fact is that it is possible to build a geriatric centre that does not look like a hospital, with neither corridors nor architectural barriers and on a single floor, in which all the rooms have direct access from (and towards) a garden that, as a sort of ‘lobby’, acts also as direct access towards (and from) the collective spaces.
The aim is to ensure total accessibility, physical autonomy, psychical security and respect to individual privacy, facilitating access to visitors.
Between the residential area and the polygonal perimeter emerges an open, interconnected, fluid, flat and unusual space that accommodates at once the different program and circulation uses. Going over the building means traversing a space with neither doors nor corridors, establishing paths that do not necessarily entail a single solution. It is a unique space, where it is possible going from A to B without following necessarily the same route. But, in addition, it is a ‘polyatmospheric’ circulation space: a series of events that can stimulate the senses and ease the disorientation and spatial tedium that one can ‘experience’ in a geriatric centre. The signage of the roof paintings and a colour code applied to programs and enclosures depending on their geographical orientation are the material supplies to this concept of “polyatmosphere”.
The synthetic enclosures are two-layer cellular polycarbonate. The interior skin of the flat outer enclosure is designed in accordance with its geographical orientation. The north facade strengthens the cold light through the use of blue and greenish plastics, whereas the south and west one favours warmer atmospheres using yellow plastics.
The roof – a bare slab of reinforced concrete – displays orientation lines that are the projection of the topographical surface of the quarries upon which the foundations were laid. This allows defining three areas through the use of three ranges of colours that include the outer adapted restrooms, and that are also associated with the tones filtered by the polycarbonate surfaces.
This palette of changing atmospheres, of different densities and intensities of light, allow the user to decide “which way to go” and “where to stay”.
But the most remarkable fact is that the atmosphere of the users gets improved from a centrifuge sense of architecture. That means an architecture where the user is an actor and not a mere spectator. An architecture generated from the interior avoiding intentionally its representation in the façades (that in this case are not more than mere enclosures), or in a supposedly more decent, trendy or conventional architectural finishings.
Manuel
Ocaña
Sagasta 23- 7º
izda
28004 Madrid
Tel: 607756969-914457240
manuelocana@manuelocana.com
LINKS:
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION
NAME OF THE BUILDING: CENTRO GERIÁTRICO SANTA RITA, CIUTADELLA, MENORCA
LOCATION: C/MARIUS VERDAGUER S/N, CIUTADELLA, ILLES BALEARES, ESPAÑA
ARCHITECT: MANUEL OCAÑA DEL VALLE, 24/12/1966
COLLABORATORS:
COMPETITION: Christian Fink, Benjamin Scharf, Celia López, Laura Rojo
PROJECT: Fermina Garrido, Elisa Fernández, Malgosia Czaban
BUILDING WORK: Maja Frackowiatz, Michael Rabold, Víctor Navarro, Roberto González, Sebastian Dillner
CEILING LINES: Sebastián Camacho, Guilnara Petzold
PLUMBING: Juan Travesí
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE: Teresa Galí
STRUCTURES CALCULLATION: J.M. Churtichaga
PHOTOGRAPHY: Miguel de Guzmán
ARCHITECTURAL TECHNICIAN: JOAN CAMPS
DEVELOPER : CONSELL INSULAR DE MENORCA
OWNER: CONSELL INSULAR DE MENORCA
CONTRACTOR : OHL
BUDGET : 7.238.400 € IVA and gardens included
AREA : 5.990 m2 CONSTRUCTED + 6.200 m2 GARDENS
BIOGRAPHY
- Profesor de Proyectos en la ETSAM. 2008.........
- Profesor de Proyectos en la IE School of Architecture. 2009.........
- Profesor de Proyectos en la Universidad Europea de Madrid. 2006-2009
- Profesor Asociado de Proyectos en la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Alicante. Cursos 2004-2005, 2005-2006
- Profesor en el MASTER DE VIVIENDA COLECTIVA. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid- ETSAM. Años 2006, 2007 y 2008
OTROS CARGOS INSTITUCIONALES
- Miembro de la Comisión Científica de Europan 8.
- Director Adjunto de la VIII
Bienal de Arquitectura Española.
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[2009-09-13] |
| photo by Miguel de Guzmán
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SANTA RITA GERIATRIC CENTRE IN CIUDATELLA, MENORCA
