CARLOS III UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES BUILDING

Client: Carlos III University

Place: Madrid, Spain.
Restricted Competition: 2018

Type: Educational

Area: 7,351 m2

Budget: 6,995,400.00 EUR

 

AZPML

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Ivaylo Nachev, Carlos Orihuela, Victoria Recio Dura, Stella Salta

The building is located in the Southwest quadrant of the site, trying to compact the building mass as much as possible to facilitate access to the campus from the door located in the roundabout of Paseo de la Estación, freeing up as much space as possible for the next building. The building is aligned with the Ortega y Gasset Building, and the original buildings of the Campus along Calle Madrid and Calle Magallanes, leaving the Humanities Library as a singular piece. The main accesses will take place from the east face towards the interior of the Campus at level +628.00 and from a square at level +632.50 level with the ground in the Paseo de la Estación. A minor access is provided on the north face of the building, at elevation +628.00 in order to connect directly with the future building to be built to the north. Logistical and parking access is via a ramp located in the southwest corner of the site, which descends to the basement at +625.00.

The building is designed with the intention of achieving maximum compactness, which allows minimizing energy consumption and at the same time integrating the different programs around a single collective space where the different activities are visually connected in order to optimize exchanges between them. A central atrium measuring 22.50 x 22.50 m serves as a social and climatic mechanism, connecting all the parts of the program together to promote interrelation and avoid sealing between the different parts of the program. The atrium will serve to illuminate and ventilate the programmed rooms, acting as a natural ventilation system in summer, and as a heat accumulator in winter. The atrium constitutes a symbolic public space and access to the classrooms and laboratories on the first two floors, while creating a visual relationship with the research spaces on the two upper floors. It is proposed to use climbing plants and other plant elements in the atrium, in the areas closed with thermoceramics, to help maintain the humidity level inside and purify the air naturally.