The purpose of the General Services building is to hold the laboratories of the Cruces Hospital, the biggest medical centre in the Basque Country. Areas such as haematology, the robotic laboratory, immunology, microbiology, anatomical pathology, genetics and research, are located here together with other related services like the morgue or the blood collection lab.

Memory of project

The building was erected on the last free plot in the centre, attached to an existing building and serving as a divider between the hospital and the Milagrosa suburb. The mainly elongated plot – 84 m long by 15 m wide at one end and 26 at the other – covers a 13 m slope.

One of the requirements imposed by the client was that the building had to exhaust the buildable area fixed by regulations. As a consequence, the building’s volume had to keep within the alignments foreseen in the urban development program.

Due to its location next to the motorway that passes by at a lower level, the building takes on a predominant role and it acquires a great importance within its surroundings. The main north and south façades, predominantly white and of an abstract character, intend to evoke the image of a proteins map, as a reflection of the activity that the building holds.

The west elevation, which faces head-on a motorway which is the source of significant noise, was designed with a more closed and tight character. On the opposite end of the building, an L shaped strip is liberated from the east and north façades by means of a transparent window front. It covers the entire height of the ground floor and indicates the outpatient entrance for blood tests and analyses. The set provides the appearance of a technologically advanced and aseptic container.

The building serves not only the Cruces Hospital, but also other medical centres in the surroundings. This is the why the connections with the exterior, both for pedestrians and vehicles, are of great importance. The building has four direct entrances from the street at different levels thanks to the pronounced slope of the plot as well as different links with the attached building.

The program is distributed over seven floors, two of which are garage levels. On the first floor, the continuation of an aerial pedestrian communication core, called “human pipeline”, connects internal employee circulation with the rest of buildings of the hospital centre.

The floors were designed as open as possible, with great spans between columns, which would allow for flexible future changes. The layout is configured around a fishbone central axis which includes both vertical and horizontal communications and building services shafts. The latter can easily be accessed from all floors and were designed with ample extra space. The fishbone layout minimizes distances for people out of common areas and allows for the route taken by the building services to be shorter which in turn makes it easier to carry out possible program redistributions.

The floor-to-floor heights were conditioned by floors in the annexed building for several connections between the two buildings were necessary. This meant that the dropped ceiling was in fact higher than in a detached construction. In order to not overfill the false ceilings and to have some leeway to scale up or modify the existing building services, an inductor based system for air propulsion was designed, which minimized the size of the ducts.

The program changes that take place in the centre in order to adapt to the functional needs of the different areas are commonplace. Therefore, taking into account that the equipment that the laboratories might need are very heavy, a slab was designed on every floor with an admissible overload capacity of 1,000 kg/m2, thus facilitating the changes of use between floors.

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Architects
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ACXT. Project Architects.- Gonzalo Carro & Javier Pérez Uribarri.

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Project team
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Carlos Miguel Guimaraes, Ion Zubiaurre Ros, Marc Oliver Rips, Beatriz Pagoaga Txurruka.
Electrical & Telecommunications Engineering.- Alvaro Gutierrez-Cabello Arce, Oscar Malo Jesus, Ibai Ormaza
Mechanical Engineering.- Álvaro Gutierrez, Lorena Muñoz García, Jorge Díaz Alonso.
Public Health Services.- Álvaro Gutierrez, Begoña Sánchez Rojo.
3 D Design.- Roberto Fernández de Gamboa.
Program.- Fco. Javier Ruiz de Prada, Ziortza Bardeci, Gabriel Bustillo Churruca, Agurtzane Insa Sáenz, Maria Bardal Sánchez.

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Collaborators
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Health & Safety Plan.- SPRIL.
Structures.- INEK ingeniería.

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Client
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Osakidetza / Servicio Vasco de Salud.

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Area
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Project Area.- 9,963 m².

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Dates
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Project Year.- 2012.

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Location
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Cruces, Barakaldo, Biscay, Spain.

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Photography
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Aitor Ortiz. 

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Gonzalo Carro Lopez, (Getxo, 1974). Architect from the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, specialising in urban planning. He joined IDOM in 2002 and has been a partner since 2012.

His career has focused on the design and management of singular projects, including the Historical Archive of the Basque Country, the laboratory building of the Cruces University Hospital, the headquarters of the UPV Science Park, BTEK, the Salburua Civic Centre, the Biocruces Institute, the integral reform of the Bizkaia Tower and the new headquarters of FAES Farma. He is currently developing projects such as the arena and sports centre for the UDEM in Monterrey, the Atocha intermodal station, the Outpatients' Buildings of the Basurto and Donostia University Hospitals, as well as the Proton-therapy unit at the Donostia Hospital. 

Throughout his professional career, he has received recognition and awards such as First Prize Lamp Lighting Solution 2010, Honourable Mention at the Sao Paulo Architecture Biennial, Honourable Mention at the AR Awards, finalist at the WAN and Architizer A+Awards 2016, winner at the WAF 2016, Veteco 2018, Chicago Athenaeum 2020 or NAN 2021. A partner at IDOM, he has been working for the group since 2002. Throughout his professional career, he has received awards and prizes such as Archdaily Building of the Year 2009, Building of the Year Plataforma Arquitectura 2009, First Prize Lamp Lighting Solution 2010, Honourable Mention at the Sao Paulo Architecture Biennial, Honourable Mention at the AR Awards, finalist at the WAN and Architizer A+Awards 2016, winner at the WAF 2016, Veteco 2018, Chicago Athenaeum 2020 or NAN 2021. 

Among the most singular projects he has carried out are the Historical Archive of Euskadi, the laboratory building of Cruces University Hospital, the headquarters of the UPV Science Park, BTEK, the Salburua Civic Centre, the Biocruces Institute, the integral reform of the Bizkaia Tower, and the new headquarters of DFG and FAES Farma. It is currently developing projects such as the arena and sports centre for the UDEM in Monterrey, the Atocha intermodal station, the Outpatients' Buildings of the Basurto and Donostia University Hospitals, as well as the Proton-therapy unit at the Donostia Hospital.
 

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