Ramon Esteve Estudio won the “A+ Prize for the Best Healthcare Architecture Project”
admin — June 25, 2013 — Leave a comment
On Thursday 13th June 2013, Ramon Este Estudio was awarded with the “A+ Prize for the Best Healthcare Architecture Project”, the winning project was the CEAM Sant Rafael. The Prize-giving ceremony was organized by Grupo Vía for promoting the talent and creativity of Spanish architects.
The Arq + Awards fourth edition was again a participation success with 107 projects submitted in the different categories by 62 different architecture offices.
The first selection was picked by a jury composed of Fredy Massad, architect and journalist, ¿btbW/Architecture; Jose G.Osorio, editor of the Vía Construcción and A+ magazines; Marc Chalamanch, Archikubik architect; Óscar Guayabero, curator, journalist and editor; and Mariona Benain, architect and AJAC’s president.
The finalists of the Awards in the different categories were announced in Barcelona on Wednesday 15th May.
Finally, the winning projects in the different categories were announced during the Arquitectura Plus Awards prize-giving ceremony, held at Top City, on the rooftop of the Princesa Sofia Hotel (Pio XII Square, 4) in Barcelona.
- CEAM SANT RAFAEL
The CEAM Sant Rafael is a healthcare centre for the Elderly. Most of users spend a lot of time in waiting rooms and corridors, attentive for their turn to receive medical treatment or just watching other users passing by.
In anticipation, we decided to design these distribution spaces with the same quality and criteria than the rest of the programme, so they become wide and open areas of relation. The aim is to foment interpersonal relations among the Elderly and foster fluid communication. We tried to avoid the presence of lower quality spaces where the elderly may end up spending long hours.
This premise took part in the concept of the project: a series of convergent and divergent walls acting as separating elements between spaces, but maintaining space fluidity and visual relations.
This way, the plot is divided in three stripes, placing the building on the central one. Furthermore, the building separates from the dividing-walls so it can be open on both sides.
One of the free spaces becomes a pedestrian street used daily by the neighbourhoods. This way, we give continuity to a street that converges on the plot. We also avoid the absorption of the Centre, by motivating its integration in the life of the neighbourhood as a public space. The aim is to invite the elderly and the neighbours to use it and cross it every day.
The other free strip is enclosed in order to provide a private use for the elderly, including lawn bowling game facilities and places to play cards.
Despite the apparent difficulty of the convergent walls, it is a simple-language building. The fluid space remaining between the set of walls is resolve through easiness and constructive honesty.
The programme is solved around two courtyards filtering views. The result, closely related to the constructive process, is accessible and understandable by the users at a glance. There is no endless succession of corridors and doors.
Architect
Ramon Esteve
Collaborating architects
Olga Badí
Anna Boscá
Collaborator
Tudi Soriano
Building engineer
Emilio Pérez
Location
Ontinyent, Valencia, Spain
Developer
CONSELLERIA DE BENESTAR SOCIAL
Contractor
Clasica Urbana
Construction
2011
Total area
918m2
Photographer
Mariela Apollonio
- RAMON ESTEVE ESTUDIO
“Places where to live”
Serenity
Timelessness
Atmosphere
Universality
As an architecture and design office, we envision projects that convey intensity through the essentials, collecting the spirit of a work that is tackled with a comprehensive manner and with the aim of materializing unique spaces, places with identity and linked to who lives in them. All this by constantly seeking and applying concepts such as harmony, serenity, timelessness, atmosphere, universality and contextualisation.
We work on an international basis, dealing with the different architectural scales, from the object to the space, both in natural and urban contexts. We manage to combine the excellence of a complete project with the available means, so as to achieve the best solution according to the physical, economic and cultural circumstances
