The Manta Hospital incorporates a structure capable of resisting to earthquakes with standards that exceed the public regulations: the façade was designed to minimize damages that can hurt people or stop the functioning of the hospital. An articular system was implemented so that all the efforts that occur in the structure are not transmitted to the façade nor the carpentry, and are absorbed thanks to a spring system that guarantees flexibility between the different elements. Also, the use of polycarbonate has resulted in a light and high-performance façade, able to withstand an earthquake through joint technology.
Project description by PMMT
Manta General Hospital
Manta General Hospital in Ecuador responds to a civil emergency: a city devastated by an earthquake in 2016 in a country with little seismic risk awareness and is looking to improving regulatory and planning issues. The first anti-seismic hospital in Ecuador is based on two main pillars: a jump in scale taking the parametric design to the highest level and surpassing the patent obtained two years earlier as a result of the design and construction of the Puyo Hospital - and the ingenuity of using conventional systems make up the pillars of the first anti-seismic hospital in Ecuador.
The earthquake catastrophe had left a population of more than 200,000 people without a hospital, nor an airport. In order to restore healthcare attention in the Bahía area, it was necessary to build a general hospital in the shortest time possible and at the lowest cost. An ingenious design proposes a seismic-resistant structure prepared to maintain its operativity and reduce its vulnerability to future earthquakes.
The building construction speed doesn’t restrict neither its high representative value nor its exterior appearance, which is contemporary and innovative thanks to a very light material used on the exterior facade: translucent polycarbonate. This material is intermittent by transparent glass windows, creating spaces that shape several porches and patios, and elements that achieve a proper transition between environments through light, shadows, reflections, transparency and translucency.
