Distancing from daily activity. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
22/02/2021.
[Gibraleón - Huelva] Spain
metalocus, AZAHARA SERRANO
metalocus, AZAHARA SERRANO
The location of the new Health Center, designed by Javier Terrados, in this Huelva city, is unique. It is sit on the edge of the town and, in its surroundings, there is a museum and an amphitheater.
The access is a whole route away from urban noise and closer to a quiet space, to enter the building, you must go through a semi-private, semi-enclosed courtyard with a garden, which provides a contrast of color with the structures of the center, in mostly white. With this, also, it is intended to facilitate the patient to adapt psychologically and progressively to his medical visit.
The access is a whole route away from urban noise and closer to a quiet space, to enter the building, you must go through a semi-private, semi-enclosed courtyard with a garden, which provides a contrast of color with the structures of the center, in mostly white. With this, also, it is intended to facilitate the patient to adapt psychologically and progressively to his medical visit.
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados. Photograph by Fernando Alda
Site plan. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
Ground floor plan. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
First floor plan. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
South Elevation. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
Section A-A'. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
Section B-B'. Health centre at Gibraleón by Javier Terrados
Javier Terrados who awarded with First Prize in the ideas competition, designs the interior with the waiting rooms visually connected with landscaped courtyard that provide natural ventilation and lighting from a quiet environment visually isolated from the outside. An image that the architect calls "a transition between illness and health."
Outside, the building plays with the dichotomy of the materials used between its two floors. The ground floor has been clad in large-format gray granite slabs, while smooth white stucco was used for the upper floor.
Outside, the building plays with the dichotomy of the materials used between its two floors. The ground floor has been clad in large-format gray granite slabs, while smooth white stucco was used for the upper floor.
Description of project by Javier Terrados
A special opportunity was given to us with the commission for the new Health Centre at Gibraleón. The plot was somehow unique, with an edge of the city at its back, a small museum at one side, and an open-air arena at its front. The most probable approaching itinerary from downtown would first face the back facade of the building (hermetic on purpose) and would continue leaving the museum at one side and following an ample porch that leads the visitor to the entrance of the building.
The access is not a direct one, but it is mediated by a secluded gardener courtyard. In this way we intended to create a sequence that could lead to a progressive withdrawal from the urban daily activity, making the consultant ready for the visit to the surgeries, a kind of modern oracle.
Once you enter the building, the above-mentioned preparation sequence continues after reaching the information desk and getting to the waiting rooms. These are visually connected with their secluded tree-covered patios, which allow natural lighting and ventilation in quiet surroundings.
“Transitions in architecture have been used as metaphors for interfaces between different worlds: public and private; sacred and secular; reality and fantasy; life and death”.
Simon Unwin.
We could add here.- “Between illness and health, between extroversion and introversion”.
The size of the plot allowed us to hollow up the layout of the program of uses, giving space to several gardened areas, to propose an inward-looking health centre, with its rooms opening to a series of green spaces surrounded by walls. A clear central circulation axis organizes the whole building following a comb-like scheme, making easier the orientation for a frequently troubled kind of visitor. On the ground floor, the central corridor that leads to the areas of surgeries looks back to the city scene in a veiled way, through a thick lattice of stone pillars. The upper floor is completely inward-looking; with its main corridor lighted by translucent windows. For the rest of the rooms, landscaped courtyards and gardens built their exterior space. We wanted a hacienda, or somehow a series of courtyard houses, instead of the usual fenestrated administrative building.
Health Centres do not heal: they build up a scenery where the communication act of health takes place and, if possible, after a progressive mental distancing from daily activity.
More information
Architects
Collaborators
Rodrigo Morillo-Velarde Santos, Juan Pérez Parras. Quantity Surveyor.- Baztán Cascales.
Client
Servicio Andaluz de Salud. Delegación Provincial de Salud de Huelva.
Builder
Alto La Era.
Location
Calle Gonzalo Ramírez, Gibraleón, Huelva, Spain.
Photography
Javier Terrados
Javier Terrados, the founder of the Javier Terrados Architecture Studio, graduated as an Architect in June 1987, obtaining a PhD in October 2011 from the University of Seville.
He has received different awards, the most outstanding being the Maestranza de Sevilla Award to the Number One of the 1988 Promotion in the E.T.S. of Architecture of Seville, National Prize for the Quality of Public Promotion Housing 2005, awarded to the work of 68 VPO homes, garages and premises in the San Jerónimo neighborhood of Seville, by the Ministry of Housing or the First Prize in the National Competition "III Termoarcilla 2006 Award" for works built in the 2005-2006 biennium, for the work of the La Línea de la Concepción Youth House (Cádiz), convened by the Termoarcilla Consortium in October 2006.
Throughout his career he has carried out various urbanization, rehabilitation, housing, renovation and extension projects.
On the other hand, he has served as the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Seville in the Department of Architectural Projects (Projects 1, 3, 5 and Composition Elements from the 1988-1989 academic year) or as Director of the Course «The City and the Signs . Interventions in the inner city ”, held at the Baeza Headquarters of the International University of Andalusia, from September 7 to 11, 2009, among other seminars.
He has received different awards, the most outstanding being the Maestranza de Sevilla Award to the Number One of the 1988 Promotion in the E.T.S. of Architecture of Seville, National Prize for the Quality of Public Promotion Housing 2005, awarded to the work of 68 VPO homes, garages and premises in the San Jerónimo neighborhood of Seville, by the Ministry of Housing or the First Prize in the National Competition "III Termoarcilla 2006 Award" for works built in the 2005-2006 biennium, for the work of the La Línea de la Concepción Youth House (Cádiz), convened by the Termoarcilla Consortium in October 2006.
Throughout his career he has carried out various urbanization, rehabilitation, housing, renovation and extension projects.
On the other hand, he has served as the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Seville in the Department of Architectural Projects (Projects 1, 3, 5 and Composition Elements from the 1988-1989 academic year) or as Director of the Course «The City and the Signs . Interventions in the inner city ”, held at the Baeza Headquarters of the International University of Andalusia, from September 7 to 11, 2009, among other seminars.
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