New Health Sciences Campus

Design team: Marazzi Architetti + P'ARC
Structural Engineering: Favero & Milan Ingegneria
International Design Competition: 2006 | Shortlisted Project

The plan for the new Health science campus of Granada foresees the construction of four faculties (Medicine, Pharmacy, Medical Sciences, Dentistry) and a building for the General Services.
The project conceives the open space as a central and crucial element.
The concept and the structure of the design derive from an idea of protection: the project sinks into the soil to find the most favourable geological layers and micro-climates, while the architecture lifts producing a dense network of shades to mitigate the intensity of the andalucian sun.
The usual horizontal relationship among open and built-on spaces is subverted and freed the ground the buildings allow a connective space to flow: a sort of back east-west is produced on which the life of the campus literally gravitates.
On the connective are planned the accesses to the faculties, the general services and the largest classrooms. The garden becomes a real outdoor extension of the working/studying areas. From east and from west one accesses to the dorsal through low gradient ramps, while from north and from south spacious staircases allow the direct access from the existing roads.
The four partially in-ground buildings host the faculties, while the body out-of-ground, embracing an existing rural architecture, is place for the reception and for the central library.
The architecture, introverted, presents a double character: to the compact external fronts realized using pierced GRC panels, contrast bright and extrovert internal glass façades.
Vast water surfaces, fed by the winter rain-water collected and stored in underground tanks, isolate the external fronts of the buildings producing scenic effects and to indicate that life develops entirely inside. A further climatic filter will be constituted by the masses of a luxuriant vegetation, a rich pine-wood that inside the buildings perimeters mixes with palms, fruiting and medicinal plants. In the urban landscape the new campus of the medical sciences will be perceived as a sort of fertile oasis.