AUDITORIUM THEATRE

Navigating the internet, we found information about the group, teatroAtroz. It is a socially committed group and which, at the moment, shows a work about the Alzheimer illness for which it has won a sponsorship from the Alzheimur Foundation. Surprisingly, they are also bloggers. The Weblog explains well the interests of the group.

http://recuperarlaluz.blogspot.com

On the other hand, while preparing to write to them and asking them to participate in the project for AlzheiMur centre, it came to our mind an idea to have the lecture theatre also as a stage. Different groups could perform there, equally for the patients as for the many assemblies that take place in the Centre. These activities would strengthen the powerful educational character that the Foundation has.

THE THIRD ENTRANCE TO THE CENTRE

We have revisited the site in order to find out whether the third entrance to the Centre is feasible. It would give life to the area to the north, providing access of goods to the bar-dining hall and, a direct link with the future area reserved for bedrooms. Accessing the site from the petrol station, continuing along the path and passing the wooden house that we have for a neighbour, we come across an access which keeps the same level as the irrigation ditch which frames the mountain.

ICELANDIC RESIDENCES

In Iceland we met the neurologist Arna Rún, who told us about the common typology of residences in the country designated for Alzheimer patients. It consists of small units where the prime element is to create a home. This scale, so familiar, helps to reach a high degree within the therapy, where the patients feel utile and helpful in domestic activities (lay the table with a tablecloth, wash the dishes, etc.).
Arna invited us to visit one of the residences in Akureyri. It accommodates eight patients where they sleep and live under one roof and in fact, the installations are adapted to a conventional single house.

THERAPEUTIC ARCHITECTURE

ALZHEIMUR TISSUE

TISSUE OF NEURONS II

Carmen Antúnez surprised us again with this image that shows the cerebral tissue of an adult: a world full of relationships.

INTERLOCKED BRIEF

From being at the beginning, a string that connects different nucleus, that string changes into becoming a continuous band fulfilling different briefs.

PINE-LIBRARY

A pine-library is a continuous tissue made up of bookcases, wireless networks, pine woods, porches, patios and other reading areas that are characterized by different degrees of protection, and acoustic and visual privacy.

JEWELS

Dear Carmen,

Thousand thanks for your bombardment of images. They are helping us very much to explain relationships within AlzheimUr to ourselves.

It is fundamental to go beyond the initial idea of a route between independent pavilions. Now we are trying, from the mountain and the brief, to create a single complex… Here everybody is very excited but also pulling their hair out trying to solve this challenge!

I enclose an image of a working model. It owes much to the wonderful image of the neuron taken from a new-born. At last, the spines have begun to develop and to establish connections.

Best regards, javier

MODELLING THE BRIEF II

We have made three models that already propose a more thorough adaptation of the program to the conditions of the site.

The first model represents the Dementia Unit. It must be pointed out that the rooms in this project are as important as the corridors that lead to them, since connections enclose an important function of interweaving the tissue that in the end will constitute the building.
A second model deals with the orchard and its relationship with the day-care centre. This centre leads to the orchard, to which it relates by means of two paths that reach into the free space between the three lines of lemon trees.

Finally, the preoccupation of the third model is to protect the rocky landscape. From the contour lines appear areas in shade due to the construction of changing cantilever above the land that generates spaces of different heights. The space represented by this model is the one of the superior rocky part of the site, where the cafeteria and the administration will be located.

MODELLING THE BRIEF I

We elaborate the first models in paper according to the brief that is being worked on and the basis that has been established.

These models are no more than a series of folds and in fact the building itself gets twisted in a way to fit into the vegetation and to be placed under the top of the trees. Sometimes the roofs are bent since the trees differ in height.

The first model is about the connection that leads to the building and is divided into two categories according to the speed of circulation; faster for the personnel and slower for the patients and the relatives.

Another model represents the Dementia Unit that is divided into three areas: the waiting room, a breakfast room and medical department.

INTERRELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE BRIEF

Here we try to propose possible layouts of different elements that constitute the brief. With the purpose of encouraging communication, not only between patients but also between the personnel of the centre, each unit will have a core where such connections are brought into being.

CONNECTING ATMOSPHERES

MEASURING THE BRIEF

On the other hand, Marisol Martinez’s visit to our office, a social worker, enabled us to clarify numerous aspects related to a centre for one hundred patients. Our daycentre is divided into two levels according to the degree of the Alzheimer illness. An effort is made to prevent patients with different degrees of the illness to relate to each other. The stratification of these levels also has a symbolic value: the lower the level is the greater is the degree of the illness. This way, the patients of the first stages will be located higher on the mountain. They relate to the surroundings since the degree of their illness allows them to enjoy outdoor activities. On the other, the patients with more advanced degrees of the illness, whose mobility has been decreased, maintain a contemplative attitude towards the environment with an easy exit to the workshops organised in the orchard on the ground floor.

CHART OF SURFACES

The doctor, Carmen Antúnez, has been in charge of elaborating the chart which defines the surface metres of the centre, according to following chart:

The neuropsychology centre will have an initial route shared by the patient and the family that more ahead will break up into two different rooms: one room is thought for the patient who is interviewed by the psychologist and another where a social worker receives the family.

A TISSUE OF NEURONS I

Today we have received the visit of the doctor, Carmen Antúnez. This encounter is revealing, especially when Carmen shows an image, a photograph, of a brain of a new born baby when still no synapses have been developed. We are dealing with an embryo of complex network interrelationships. It is fascinating to think that a structure so rachitic in principle, can with time convert into an incredibly complicated network, which we are accustomed to see. Nevertheless, everything is already arranged from the beginning to commence the connections. Thinking about this photograph, we realised that it represents precisely the aim of the project: to be a skeleton for a complex system of relations, and that the centre will end up being a tissue of relationships like the one of the nervous system.

STRANGELY FAMILIAR

Another important aspect of this project is to represent a home for those who attend it, understanding a home as a nuclear, the essential, and representative of each one of us. This home is created as the building gains life. An image that illustrates this idea in a wonderful way is the photograph below by Pascuala Ortiz, which shows her home taken to the hill by her town that holds so many memories from her youth.

ATMOSPHERES

The centre will have areas to rest where the patients can have a siesta or simply form links. These spaces will have the peculiarity to appear interlaced with the pine wood, with the effect that the wood is not a mere element to look at but is a dynamic participant in the act.

The lecture room is not thought to be conventional. The wall of the stage will not be white but a large window that shows the greatness of the landscape, recovering the idea of a Greek theatre resting on the hill and hence forming part of it. This lecture room will, furthermore, be an independent pavilion in the intermediate area.

ENCOURAGING CONNECTIONS

Working in a group

A very important aspect of the project is to work in a team. One is to avoid that each professional centre remains in his small office without establishing relationships with others. Instead, we set out to construct a space of interrelationships between the personnel, a meeting room where they can rest, exchange opinions, work… The personnel will go through this meeting room on their way to their offices so that the feeling for the working partners will be expected, and even more important, natural.

Open air workshops.

The orchard is formed by a regular grid which crosses are formed by lemon trees. Pulling up one of these crosses, a space appears which can accommodate an activity. In this way, it is possible to take advantage of these intended interruptions and to develop in them open air workshops.

Cafeteria

Patients and relatives will enjoy the cafeteria which will be placed on an elevated level so it can offer a dialogue between the site itself and the view.

Identity

The visitors who arrive to the centre by car will enter through the intermediate level. That is, the road that runs along the housing estate that reaches the car park. The visitor will cross part of the pine wood, which makes him realise right from the entrance, the intensity which lies in making the landscape part of the programme for the centre until the two dissolve into one.

PERFORMANCES ON THE LAND

Now we propose a way of formalising this settlement. There are three options, depending on if the building system is based on terraces, platforms or on a mixture of both. The aim is to integrate the building into the grid of vegetation, trying to appear as if it were a fluid, that is, invading the land yet adapting itself to it.

TOPOGRAPHIC CONSTRUCTIONS

Strategies used in order to know how to appropriate the orchard.

A first study of the method of how to make use of it, proposes a grid for the orchard, an area that had already a form of a grid. It would be a grid of 5 x 5 m and the edges will be different when facing the slope or the orchard. In addition, there is also a possibility of locating the structure 20cm above ground level and in that way enabling irrigation for the orchard.

Topography of the void in the pine wood

The aim is to adapt to the land in as natural way as possible. In order to achieve that, we establish relationships between the topography of the land and the created topography of the trees. We draw a grid from the existing vegetation and we calculate the distance between the ground and the top of tree as a way to study the void under it. We establish different planes that enable the building to intertwine the vegetation.

The protocol of settling into the topography

A later study proposes a way of settling into the space keeping a maximum slope of 6%. In principle, we consider that the maximum difference in levels between two connecting points will be 4 metres. In this way, the drawing of the ramp, which will cross the construction, will appear by means of circumferences 60 metres in diameters. From here, one can draw straight lines that can connect different parts of the construction in a comfortable way for the users and with a respect to the land.Furthermore, studies of light have been made as well as of the wind with the purpose of finding the suitable way so as to obtain an optimum ventilation for the construction.

DISSECTION OF THE TOPOGRAPHY

We are going to analyse the topography of the place, with the purpose of developing a map of different uses that can take place on the site. It would be a manual of instructions of how to operate in the landscape without changing its essence.

Change of scale, change of speed

A study of three different scales allows a progressive approach towards the land. It begins with a scale of the region, appraising the relationship of the site with the adjacent towns and cities, to the scale of AlzheimUr, much more detailed that describes the possible planning of traffic inside the site. From the intermediate scale, the scale of the housing estate, emerge new accesses to the site. The quick access from the lowest part of the site through the National road will help making the traffic through the housing estate more fluid. Another third access to the north is also possible. In order to obtain a fluid traffic, these routes help defining the different types of users depending on the different accesses, and reserving some of the accesses to the personnel or the arrival of goods.

Diagnosis of the structure

The topography determines the degree of intimacy offered by the site. There are different degrees of privacies, from the minimum to the maximum. Such a powerful topography forces any kind of a building to adapt to its form. We can distinguish variations within the slope and we have made a first study of three areas: the first is the road from the housing estate that makes a great visual impact; the second is stone gravel that has been left there from making the mentioned road, instable and more complicated to work with. The third area is flat and fertile and could be used for planting. Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind the possibilities offered by the existing irrigation ditch and the orchard of lemon trees. The irrigation ditch can be understood as a guide to move through the place. In terms of the orchard, it offers us changing images according to the seasons, as well as different visual lines and crossing relationships.

Surprising atmospheres

We are going to climb the mountain in order to explore the different kinds of atmospheres. Immediately, we sense the steep slopes starting to indicate dryness, sandy air, and cracks in the sand. The opening to the pine wood leads to a dense vegetation that makes us reduce the speed of walking and arouses tranquillity and serenity, besides to offer fleeting visions of the outside. The labyrinth of trunks of the pine trees acts as a web of parasols. More ahead, an irrigation ditch appears. Advancing a little more, the atmosphere is dry, something that makes us think about ways of reserving and keeping water. As we reach the peak, the slope increases and at the same time, the uniqueness: we arrived at a sunny place but unprotected. In front of us we are left to emptiness, an artificial void of the land that is rough but also attractive to use in some way.

Stimulating the senses

Going up the mountain suggests a change of aromas, change of sounds and light. They are all sensorial elements that are characteristic for the region: the orange blossom, the Rosemary, cicada, the song of the birds, the green and fresh light … We appreciate these changes very much not least because they correspond to the essence of the site. Their conservation is essential to recover the memory of the site.

TOPOGRAPHIC MAP

The site is characterized by a hill with a steep slope. The access to it, which leads from the nearby private housing estate, leaves a brutal scar in the land due to the excavation.

RECOVERING THE MEMORY OF THE SITE

THE ENTRANCES




When passing the main entrances, one discovers already marked paths and others that are new, but essential.

THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF ATMOSPHERES





There appear different kinds of atmospheres throughout the route, from an open and luminous atmosphere to a much more intimate one that is filtered by an amazing greenish light.

ATMOSPHERE OF TRANSITION




The site offers many landscapes: a diversity that includes rocks, wood of pine trees and even an orchard. The movement between these different textures proposes interesting perspectives.

FOUND IMAGES

TOPOGRAPHIES


We find layers of atmospheres in the rough topography. The ascent provides a change of atmosphere, views and scents. At the top of the site there is a rocky area, a vantage point where one can enjoy the view of valley.

VEGETATION


There are different types of vegetation that accompany the different atmospheres: lemon trees, pines, lavender, rosemary and thyme.

VIEWPOINTS FROM WITHIN AND FROM OUTSIDE





One passes from perceiving dense vegetation inside the pine wood to contemplating a dry rocky landscape, which offers a panoramic view of 360 degrees.