Fundación Santa Fé expansion by El Equipo Mazzanti. A connecting building - a healing space

Description of the project by El Equipo Mazzanti

1. Urban connector

The comprehension of a metropolitan scale is fundamental at the moment of thinking in an integral architectonical answer. More than solving a need for the expansion of the hospital, the project should commit to solve more of what it is requested, taking advantage of the good location of the intervention area. The project is located in a place in the city where two of the main avenues: 9th and 7th avenue almost connect. Our proposal looks forward to be a diagonal connector and work as a catalyzer for new flows, activities and human relationships.

We designed dos big open spaces at the edges of the two avenues, both with a lot of vegetation, green areas, commercial stores, coffee shops and a multipurpose auditorium that will create a relationship between pedestrians and the area. Open spaces, even if they are separated from the existing hospital, they will look connected at the pedestrian level by the main lobby of the building, as well as generating new flows and activities, turning the building into an urban bridge. We state a complete urban solution that will make the University Hospital as a reference and meeting point in its environment.  

2. Connecting the existent

There is a condition in the hospital that must be solved and it is fragmentation. Originally Santa Fe Hospital had been developed through time within different master plans. In consequence this has created a maze of buildings and flows.

Our proposal tries to retake the initial idea of a complex. The idea of the connector building recovers the proposal of the axe between the existing and the new buildings. It wants to take aside the idea of joining buildings and punctual expansions and understand the hospital as a totality. This will generate necessary connections for the correct operation of the different levels, avoiding the uncontrolled growing of small pieces without relation. We propose a building with a core that will reorganize the actual vertical and horizontal flows as well as working as a linking element between the new and the existent.

Therefore we want to rescue the intention of the patio and natural lighting in each of the spaces, an element of vital meaning in the healing process.

3. Connector of the new

The new building more than reorganizing the existent hospital, it states a clear segregation of the future spaces. A building only for inpatients and the others for ICU and intermediate care; they differ in form and size because of their special functional requirements. Joined in their form only in the base by the main lobby, both buildings work as one when they connected by bridges, stairs and ramps. The bridges allow an easy connection, direct and adaptable to all differentiated flows.

The tower for ICU is stated as the next operational heart of the hospital and the surgery service. Connected by bridges and an exclusive elevator for patients.