Day care centre for elderly people and temporary accommodation building in Barcelona

Place: Barcelona
Date: 2017
Design/direction: Eduardo Delgado Orusco
Team: Javier Rincón Sánchez, Drawyourdreams (imágenes)
Competition

Our proposal for the project of Center for Elderly and Accommodations equipped with Services, recognizes the ambivalent nature of the set proposed. On the one hand this is a residential program, but it also has some public service and, therefore, institutional. This duality is presented as a value and as an opportunity, as it must be understood in continuity with the residential plot of the neighborhood, but at the same time raise a certain referentiality for its population. To achieve these objectives the set presents a material continuity, but at the same time pursues a correct form and scale.

The volumetry of the whole is organized into two bodies: one relatively low and substantially horizontal, and another in the form of a tower, wanting to evoke and update the welfare and protective character of institutions of other times. Likewise the whole is posed with a material and geometric treatment of great cleanliness, touched by a certain nobility. Thus we understand the character of the center.

The building is understood as a game of "Tetris", in which its parts are clearly recognizable and nevertheless fit perfectly: the Center of Elders wants to be as horizontal as possible. Thus, it tends on the ground - avoiding the vertical routes - and only exceptionally they rise to a second floor, communicated by stairs but also by lifts, workshops, the meeting room and the corresponding services.

In fact, the organization in the center plant recognizes the memory of the place, as far as the allotment of passages perpendicular to the Carrer de los Mestres Casals i Martorell. This organization guarantees the best ventilation, particularly of the most occupied spaces, such as the dining room and multipurpose rooms, although there are also skylights and small ventilation patios where it is needed.

This second floor is also used to propose an outdoor space, a place and meeting place for the elderly, although it could also be accessible to the users of the dwellings. Here is one of the requested pétanque courts, but also possible orchards or outdoor spaces. Somehow it would be returning to the neighborhood the space occupied by the building.

On the other hand, the lodgings are separated from the street - in search of privacy and a certain isolation - and are arranged in a two-storey cradle parallel to the Carrer de los Mestres Casals and Martorell, and in a vertical construction - a tower - that will serve to shape the identity of the whole. The different condition of neighborhood that is established in these two pieces, will allow to attend to the possible diversity of situations that will also arise in the regime of the users. Thus, both pieces share the same philosophy, grammar and materials, both inside and outside. But they differ in the degree of coexistence / isolation with the rest of users / neighbors.

Each housing unit is designed as a generous bedroom that opens onto a terrace - covered, but open to the outside - which will favor outdoor living, lighting and ventilation of all the pieces. In the interior a multipurpose furniture solves the housing program and allows to conceal what is not used, multiplying the versatility of the space. Nevertheless, understanding the enormous and varied needs that arise in a center of this type, we have studied the possibility of colonization of part of these terraces, linked to the previous unit or even independently (see table in the competition panel) . In this way, and over time, you could multiply -controllably- the number of room units.

Regarding the efficacy of the uses, we consider the organization of accesses -differentiated for the elderly, housing, employees and merchandise- and which will result in the clarity and rationality of the interior tours.

Also in the exterior is the construction of a south-facing plaza facing the access of the center of major, and the parallel parallel to the Carrer de los Mestres Casals and Martorell to raise a second bowling alley, this time under cover. Also takes advantage of the passage of the arcades that connect the Avenue of Frances Cambó to pose the main access to the accommodations.