Edificio Hospitalario Polivalente Barcelona, PMMT Arquitectura

In Barcelona, a multi-purpose hospital building has been built in the Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili. This healthcare infrastructure is based on research findings on the coronavirus pandemic from the Catalan healthcare system. More about the findings and their architectural implementation here.

The Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona is a large general hospital. Studio PMMT Arquitectura, together with other partners, was commissioned to build a multi-purpose building for the hospital in the adjacent park. This is based on a research process that the hospital carried out together with the Catalan health system to respond to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. The result is a typological model for multi-purpose buildings that can be built in the vicinity of any general hospital. The aim is to support the local health network according to the needs of the center in different circumstances.

The multi-purpose building is efficient and safe to use. At the same time, it is designed to create human spaces for healthcare staff, patients and visitors. The present building in Barcelona offers 56 hospital beds over two floors. There are also 32 conventional intensive care beds over three floors. Five buildings of this type were constructed in Catalonia in the last quarter of 2020. Studio PMMT Arquitectura provided the design for this.

The design brief for the multi-purpose building was clear: compact, quick to build, flexible, safe, integrated into the environment and designed for people. The compact design means that the building occupies the smallest possible site area, 975 square meters, to accommodate 88 beds. Accordingly, similar additions to general hospitals can be built elsewhere, even in quite small spaces.

It was built quickly: Thanks to the lean construction method in combination with a modular, industrialized system, construction took just 20 weeks. This was particularly important during the pandemic in 2020. The flexibility of the building is due to strategies such as modularity and the use of so-called parametric windows. This makes it possible to change the floor plan without changing the façade. The multi-purpose building consists of a total of 62 modules, each measuring 5 x 15 meters. The circulation within the building was also important to the architects. Clearly marked zones and transitions guarantee that clean and dirty circuits never cross. This makes the building as hygienic and safe as possible.

The hospital building is integrated into the infrastructure of the main hospital via underground connections. Depending on the context, these connections can also be created above ground. The focus is always on people: the architecture is designed for patients, healthcare staff and maintenance personnel as well as visitors. This should actively contribute to the humanization of the healthcare system. Thanks to these features, the multi-purpose hospital building in Park Sanitari Pere Virgili was particularly useful for acute care during the coronavirus pandemic. However, it is also available for other health purposes and for any future health emergencies.

The Spanish architecture studio PMMT Arquitectura specializes in the sustainable and forward-looking construction of hospitals. It attaches great importance to the integration of current research results and close cooperation with experts from hospitals and clinics in order to build innovative, people-friendly and safe hospital infrastructure.

Read more: An interesting addition to a hospital can also be found in Madrid with the Aceleradora Pavilion.