Description

In addition to creating a facility that provides residents with the necessary privacy, accessibility, security and independence in the last phase of their lives, a primary concern of the architects was to design a building that does not look like a hospital. Long monotonous corridors in particular were to be avoided. Manuel Ocaña’s design is instead characterised by a sense of openness: access and circulation areas are generous and promenades non-prescriptive in their direction, opening up multiple perspectives that stimulate the residents, encouraging them to “discover” their environment.

The distinctive form of the building, a loop inscribed in the topography of a filled-in quarry, was developed outwards from a basic core unit: the resident’s room. Each room is generously proportioned with light and modern furnishings and two separate means of access. Arranged one behind the other, the rooms are strung like beads in a free-form loop that encloses a large interior garden accessible from each and every room.

The snaking band of rooms sits inside a rectangular plot with an exterior façade made of translucent double-wall polycarbonate sheeting, with additional shading elements depending on orientation. Coloured surfaces and plastic panelling emphasise the respective atmospheric effects of the light: blue and green tones for the cool light to the north, yellow for the warmer light on the south and west façades. The ceiling consists of a bare slab of reinforced concrete painted with coloured lines that pick up the contours of the topography of the former quarry below.

Colour highlights are also used to provide additional orientation in each of the three “living loops” and their respective courtyards as well as in the different therapy areas in the geriatric centre: the walling of the freestanding disabled toilets, the lines on the ceilings and even the planting outdoors follow a consistent palette in each of the zones.

The space between the rooms and the outside walls of the building runs around the entire peri­meter, varying in width and extending sometimes deep into the interior. It forms a flowing, open and connecting space in which all manner of activities can take place. Rather than having to follow prescribed routes, one can move around the building freely, going from A to B without always following the same path. The atmospheric qualities of this connecting space also change from zone to zone, making moving around an experience that stimulates the senses. The different zones, their changing degree of enclosure and lightness, allow the residents to decide spontaneously which way they would like to go and where they want to rest, according to their mood and physical constitution.

The project was realised on a very tight budget – 6000 m² were realised for the price of 4000 m² – and priority was given to providing key geriatric facilities and the most essential fittings. Most of the furnishings and finishes, in particular the technical installations, have been left exposed, almost bare. The architects have tried to be as economical as possible with the construction in order to free up remaining funds for supposedly “pointless” things, citing the Dadaist credo that it is the pointless things which one can least do without in life.

The centre opened in 2008, and it remains to be seen whether this comparatively cool and futuristic facility will be embraced by its users in the warm climes of the island of Menorca.

---

Originally published in: Eckhard Feddersen, Insa Lüdtke, Living for the Elderly: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2011.