The Primary Healthcare Centre is located in the district of Sant Cosme in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona). The neighborhood, which construction started in 1964 as an estate of public housing, has been occupied since then by immigrants from the Spanish peninsula and some gypsies’ settlements.
The lack of facilities and the provisional nature of the district deteriorated sharply the living in the neighborhood, which led to its total renovation that had begun in 1978.
The original healthcare center was built around 1980.
The current project has involved the refurbishment of the original 1.400 m2 and a new extension of 3.000 m2.
The original building, designed as a unitary volume, becomes the head of a new much larger body, which adopts the form of a fishbone with a succession of courtyards and volumes, which ensures lighting and ventilation of the spaces as well as a proper separation between the different specialties of medicine.
The new ensemble has a simple and functional shape based on an implementation that releases a new space. This new space is a large open-square "Plaza de l’Aigua" that marks the end of the Riu Llobregat Avenue, the real backbone of the current district of Sant Cosme. Obviously this will be the new main entrance of the center.
In general, the architectural language is modest and sincere; a recognition of the fact that the building is in a place unwilling to formal frivolities. Moreover, the white and repetitive architecture implies a necessary image of sobriety, cleanliness and tidiness linked to public health. A discreet white architecture that tries to show the importance of the activity that occurs inside.
