Hasta La Ideas

This medical research centre in Lisbon by Indian architects Charles Correa Associates has a curved stone form with circular cut-aways.

The Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown comprises two buildings, the first containing research laboratories and treatment rooms, and the second housing an auditorium and exhibition area.

A central pathway crosses the site between the buildings, leading towards two monolithic stone sculptures and an outdoor amphitheatre.

Above the pathway, a glass tubular bridge connects the two buildings together.

Photography is by José Campos.

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Here are some more details from Charles Correa:

The Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown

What makes me most proud about this project is that it is NOT a Museum of Modern Art.

On the contrary, it uses the highest levels of contemporary science and medicine to help people grappling with real problems; cancer, brain damage, going blind.

And to house these cutting-edge activities, we tried to create a piece of architecture. Architecture as Sculpture. Architecture as Beauty. Beauty as therapy.

And we have also attempted to use NATURE as therapy. The WATER around us. The SKY above. The healing presence of RAIN FORESTS. All these are therapies for the patients.

Of course we have a very special site. One of astonishing Beauty – and great historic Memory.

Norbert Schulz has written eloquently about what he calls the GENUS LOCI, the essential meaning of a site – and Architecture’s unique responsibility to express, to release, that meaning, A musician can play the same Chopin concert one evening in Tokyo and the next in Brazil and the third in Paris – with every note exactly the same.

But not the Architect. For a building is rooted in the soil on which it stands, In the climate, in the technology, in the culture – and the aspirations! – of the society that uses it. This is why the same building cannot be repeated anywhere and everywhere in the world.

And of course what makes this site very special is that it is the place from which 500 years ago Vasco da Gama and the other great navigators went forth on their voyages of Discovery – a perfect metaphor for the discoveries of contemporary science today.

This is why more than 50% of the site has been given back to the city of Lisbon for its citizens to celebrate that history – without in anyway compromising the privacy of the medical activities, and vice versa. The site plan is a yang-yang pattern of interlocking spaces.

Lastly, I am proud that this project tries to express the essential nature, the Genus Loci, of this site without resorting to erratz versions of traditional architecture.

No, we have used throughout a Contemporary voice to express not only the truth about this site – but also to celebrate a very crucial moment (arguably the DEFINING moment) in the history of this nation.

Project: Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown
Location: Portugal, Lisbon
Client: The Champalimaud Foundation
Purpose: Translational Centre for Brain, Eye-sight and Cancer research

Design Architect: Charles Correa Associates
Design Team: Charles Correa, Sachin Agshikar, Manas Vanwari, Dhaval Malesha
Laboratory and Clinical design: RMJM
Architect of Record: Glintt

Services: Vanderwell
Structure: LNM
Bridge design: Joerg Schlaich
Lighting: DPA
Landscape: PROAP
Signage: Studio Dambar

Area: 50,000 sq. mt.
Budget: 100 million Euros

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Maggie’s Centre Cheltenham by MJP Architects	Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel by OMA	GKK Dental Ambulatory by Xarchitecten

This medical research building at the University of California in San Francisco by Rafael Viñoly Architects projects out from a forest hillside, supported on steel truss stems that fan upwards from the ground.

Designed to accomodate 125 individual biology laboratories for scientists studying stem-cell treatment, the building has one laboratory floor split into four levels, which step down half a storey at a time as they descend the hill.

Offices are located above each level, connected by a stepped circulation route on the exterior of the building which also bridges across to the adjacent medical centre.

The building has south-facing glazing to maximise natural light into the laboratories and offices.

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The following is from the architects:

Stem Cell Building at UCSF by Rafael Viñoly Architects:

San Francisco, California: Rafael Viñoly Architects’ design of the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building at the University of California, San Francisco has been completed.

The project is targeting LEED Gold certification. DPR Construction served as the design-build contractor and the Smith Group served as executive architect. The University held a grand opening celebration of the building on February 9, 2011.

Located on a steeply sloping urban hillside, the Dolby regeneration medicine building presented the design team a unique challenge: executing a horizontal structure on an uneven site.

RVA responded by creating a beautifully sinuous, serpentine building that makes use of every foot of available space.

The main floor functions as one continuous laboratory divided into four split levels, each stepping down a half-story as the building descends the forested hillside slope, and each level is topped by an office cluster and a grass roof with wildflowers and plants.

Exterior ramps and stairs, taking advantage of the temperate climate, provide continuous circulation between all levels, and the facility connects to three nearby research buildings and UCSF Medical Center via a pedestrian bridge.

The building structure is supported by steel space trusses springing from concrete piers, minimizing site excavation and incorporating seismic base isolation to absorb earthquake forces.

Inside the building, the transitions between the split levels are designed as hubs of activity. Break rooms and stairs located at these interfaces increase the potential for chance interaction – a goal for promoting a cross-pollination of ideas among the scientists –  and interior glazing maximizes visual connectivity between the lower labs and the upper offices.

To further promote collaboration, the laboratories occupy a horizontal open-floor plan, with a flexible, custom-designed casework system that enables the rapid reconfiguration of the research program.

Abundant south-facing glazing fills the open laboratories and offices with natural light and views of the wooded slope of Mount Sutro nearby.

Green roof terraces impart environmental benefits and an outdoor amenity for building occupants and campus community.

Visible from surrounding campus buildings’ upper floors, the terraces create a welcoming transitional space where the dense campus meets the forest.

The Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building is the headquarters for The Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF, which extends across all UCSF campuses.

The Center encompasses 125 labs made up of scientists exploring the earliest stages of animal and human development.

The goal of these studies is to understand how disorders and diseases develop and how they could be treated based on the knowledge of, and use of, stem cells and other early-stage cells.

The Institute’s mission is to translate basic research findings to clinical research and on to patient care.

Scientists in the Institute will work closely with clinical researchers at UCSF Medical Center, located nearby, to translate discoveries into therapeutic strategies.

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United States Senate by Rafael Viñoly	Cleveland Museum of Art by Rafael Viñoly	Medical Centre by Doblee Architects

Here are some photos of a medical centre in Milagro, Spain, by Doblee Architects of Pamplona.

Consulting rooms are arranged down one side of the two-storey building and will be shielded from neighbouring houses by a garden planted with olive trees.

Photographs are by Josema Cutillas.

The information that follows is from Doblee Architects:

The project, beside giving content to the program of a medical doctor’s office, tries to generate a dialog between the interior of the building and the public space that surrounds it, having in it counts the sun and the spaces of privacy of the consultations.

With the volumetric game between the ground floor and the first one, one seeks to mark and to delimit the zone of access, generating a porch and, in turn, to provide the build of the well-deserved character of municipal equipment.

In the ground floor there develops the whole program that gives service to the patient, since they are the consultations and the offices.

In the first plant there are located two bedrooms, a kitchen and a lounge of the operatives who work at night.

The consultations are connected between them and arranged so that in a future they could be extended it was doing the garden that stays in the southern part.

These consultations are orientated towards the court of olive trees that works as filter between the Doctor’s office and the housings of to the side.

The intention is that the new building passes to form a part of the public square, reorganizing and revaluing the playgroud and the existing green spaces.

Medical Centre in Milagro, Navarra (Spain)

PROMOTER: Town Hall of Milagro (Spain)

ARCHITECTS:
Borja Izaguirre Larrañaga
Cristina Arregi Gonzalo
Silvia Echeverría Echeverría
Beatriz Gil Rodríguez

LOCATION: parcel nº 782 of the polygon nº1, between the street Profesor Turrillas and San Juan Avenue, Milagro, Navarra (Spain).

CONSTRUCTED AREA: 653 m2

BUDGET: 588.420 Euros

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Obata Clinic by Hayato Komatsu Architects	Carema Healthcare Centre by TAF	Maggie’s Centre Cheltenham by MJP Architects

Here are some photos of the recently-completed Maggie’s Centre Cheltenham, a cancer care facility designed by London practice MJP Architects. 

Located within the grounds of Cheltenham hospital in the UK, the centre comprises an existing lodge building and a new single-storey extension, clad in wood and surrounded by an enclosed landscaped garden.

The new extension includes a large communal space with a long table in the centre and seating bays lining the walls.

A fireplace and kitchen are located at either end of this room, with a private meeting and therapy room beyond.

Two semi-circular rooms in the garden can be used for private meetings and therapy sessions.

See our earlier stories on other Maggie’s centres:

Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel by OMA »
Maggie’s Centre by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners »

More stories on clinics, surgeries and hospitals on Dezeen »

Here’s some more information from the architects:

MAGGIE’S CHELTENHAM DESIGN

Maggie’s Cheltenham is the seventh Maggie’s Centre to open. The new centre encompasses a conversion of the existing Victorian Grade II Listed Pool Keeper’s Lodge which sits within the grounds of the Cheltenham Hospital, coupled with a new single storey extension to the building.

The extension, clad and lined in locally sourced hardwood and conceived as a series of highly detailed pieces of ‘furniture’, sits under a large, over sailing winged roof.

Situated a five minute walk away from the main hospital, the building sets out to provide a series of distinct and reassuring spaces.

The scale of both the existing lodge and the new extension offers a domestic context, distinct from the institutional character of the hospital itself.

The centre is entered through an enclosed and highly landscaped garden in which there will be several discrete sitting areas.

The entrance is located so that staff can guide visitors into alternative and contrasting environments.

New visitors may have their initial meeting with a member of staff in one of the ground floor rooms of the lodge which can offer the privacy of a one-to-one space.

In contrast, returning visitors can enter a room in the new extension that aims to facilitate communal interaction, rather like a country kitchen with a large table as its focus and a kitchen cooking range at one end and an inglenook and stove at the other.

Comfortable seating lines each side of the room, with bookcases, pictures and fresh flowers making it feel homely and comforting. Windows look out onto gardens on both sides.

Beyond this room with its family atmosphere is another room, large enough for group therapy and for meetings which can be conducted in relative privacy.

Two small, semi-circular ‘refuges’, one opening into the garden and the other with a prospect over the River Chelt provide the most secluded spaces for counselling, family meetings and private thoughts.

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The intention is that the building, with its combination of openness and intimacy and its secluded gardens, can provide a sanctuary away from the busy hospital and which will complement the emotional and psychological support provided by the Maggie’s Centre staff.

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Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel by OMA	Maggie’s Centre by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners	More architecture on Dezeen

Japanese designers Nendo have completed the interior of a mental health clinic in Akasaka, Tokyo, where none of the doors open and patients and staff instead move around the building by opening sections of the walls. (more…)