Príncipe de Asturias Hospital is a médium-complexity hospital in Córdoba, located on the south site of the city. The building responds to a health necessity for a vast pericentral sector of the lower-middle class population. The Project is expressed as a “mono-material box” of exposed brick, (a material that is very characteristic of the city, popularized with the projects built by the architect "Togo" Diaz) that envelopes a separate reinforced concrete structure under which are all the activities that meet the requirements of the medical specialties addressed in the program.
Context
The construction is located in a consolidated residential neighborhood with lower houses of one or two story of regular to precarious constructive level. Responding to the horizontality of the neighborhood, we propose a one-story building with a double height facade in the public sector which gives it hierarchy. The building is implanted in a large lot of flat topography, surrounded by a restricted circulation Street that separates it from the neighborhood fabric, highlighting it from the neighborhood environment.
Research
The use of brick in this work has some practical aspects, such as maintenance of a public building, and others like an investigation of the material. The use of this material is a research path both in our professional performance and in the university through exercises between students and teachers.
The facade is presented as a large "scale-modified brick screening" which, located towards the north, functions as a large parasol. The construction uses the available resources and takes advantage of the structural and expressive qualities of the material.
It is about reinventing this traditional material in Córdoba and finding answers in a contemporary architecture; as well as the great Latin American architects Solano Benitez and Javier Corvalán. It is a contribution and a demystification that a building of these characteristics of high health complexity needs some type of high-tech enclosures.
Material & light
We attach great importance to the incidence of light and atmospheres that we create with it in order to get closer to a humanization in health care. Most of the premises have ventilation and natural lighting, providing environmental quality and therapeutic connotation, especially in the area of intensive therapy. Three overhead light revenues were designed to ensure the perception of the trajectory of sunlight. In the waiting area a large-scale space is combined divided by the interior courtyards, where the light was used as the organizer of the space.
System
The main circulations of the Hospital are raised in the form of a "comb" to avoid interferences, clearly dividing between public and technical with open ends that enable future growth, without interfering in the correct functioning of the center. The circulation scheme proposes to achieve functional clarity in order to facilitate the orientation of the user as much as possible.
