Clínica Girona

The Clínica Girona has been stand­ing for more than 80 years and is deeply rooted in the history of the Catalan city of Girona. The main en­sem­ble in the city centre was no longer large enough to provide the wide range of medical ser­vices now avail­able and, as a result, the PMMT Ar­qui­tec­tura prac­tice de­signed a new build­ing for the clinic on the south­ern out­skirts. The clinic’s floor­space has been almost tripled, thus fa­cil­i­tat­ing a far higher level of medical pro­vi­sion. The new build­ing by PMMT is tai­lor-made for the clinic’s re­quire­ments.

A compact entity com­pris­ing eight storeys above ground and three below ex­ploits the site’s po­ten­tial to optimum effect. The build­ing con­tains three in­te­rior court­yards, more­over, that enable all rooms to gain access to natural day­light and fresh air. It fea­tures con­tin­u­ous strip windows set back in such a way that ver­ti­cal louvres running round the build­ing’s façade are able to deliver a form of non-tech­no­log­i­cal sun­shad­ing. The build­ing’s façades are a direct re­sponse to its lo­ca­tion, re­veal­ing a dif­fer­ent dis­po­si­tion to each of the four points of the compass.

The south-fac­ing façade is what anyone en­ter­ing Girona first sees and, as well as being an ex­u­ber­ant land­mark, is also the point through which am­bu­lance ca­su­al­ties are ad­mit­ted. The main en­trance faces north­wards. There is a stun­ning view of Girona and her cathe­dral to be had from the upper storeys on this side. This north-fac­ing façade extends all the way along the street and is en­livened by an ex­tra-high base­ment that affords gen­er­ous visual access to the high airy foyer within.

“We regard our ar­chi­tec­ture as a tool placed at society’s service with which to respond to complex chal­lenges,” is how the ar­chi­tects at PMMT Ar­qui­tec­tura see their work. PMMT Ar­qui­tec­tura are a prac­tice that has amassed a par­tic­u­lar degree of ex­per­tise in the plan­ning of hos­pi­tals in the first in­stance, a process that has also led to the ar­chi­tects drawing up their own cat­a­logue of cri­te­ria for bar­rier-free ar­chi­tec­ture.

In the absence of any uni­ver­sal wisdom about ac­ces­si­bil­ity, PMMT decided to study all the needs that each person has through­out their lives in the use of the built en­vi­ron­ment. The result was Clear Code Ar­chi­tec­ture®, an ob­jec­tive and para­met­ric method that allows to measure the Uni­ver­sal Ac­ces­si­bil­ity level of any built space and to design in­clu­sive en­vi­ron­ments that can be used and lived by all people, what­ever their needs and cir­cum­stances. A further fruit of their en­deav­ors towards in­clu­sive design is a Clear Code handle concept, spe­cially de­vel­oped by PMMT for FSB.

The ar­chi­tects de­scribe their handle design FSB 1233 with AIC (anti-in­fec­tion coating) thus: “Quite apart from its elegant design, this is a door handle that guar­an­tees it can be straight­for­wardly used by anybody, re­gard­less of any im­pair­ments they may have.” The Braille in­scrip­tion on the back of the grip enables those of im­paired vision to es­tab­lish the iden­tity of a given room with their hands. The handle’s Alu­minium surface ad­di­tion­ally boasts an anti-bac­te­r­ial coating that ensures the req­ui­site pro­tec­tion against in­fec­tion.