Mario Corea Arquitectura

Situated in front of Collserola, the mountain range that marks the western limit of Barcelona, the Vall d’Hebron hospital complex is one of the most important and largest healthcare centers in Spain.

The brief for this annex to the area of Traumatology was based on the creation of a new department for patients with burn injuries. The gymnasium that had been standing on the rather constricted site had been demolished and all that remained of it was the basement in which the department’s archives were stored. The program stipulated that both this space as well as its function as an archive had to be maintained.

The other important mandate of the program was that the general activity of the hospital had to be maintained during the construction process. Therefore, in order to avoid interferences a specific structural solution was proposed that consisted of metallic thirty-five-meter-span trusses. Utilizing this system, a lesser number of columns were necessary in the archive area and no interior columns were necessary in the annex, facilitating the internal distribution as well as any future modifications.

The 2,500 m2 of surface area is divided on two levels that maintain continuity with the levels of the existing building. All the rooms for patients with burn injuries; treatment areas and the plastic surgery operating room are located on the semi-basement floor. To this unit, which is totally prepared for emergencies, a rehabilitation room and administration offices have been added. On the ground floor above there are nine surgical rooms with their corresponding post-operation recovery room.