Day Center for Dependent Elderly People in Meliana

Meliana, Spain

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Photo © Milena Villalba

Architects: AHEAD Barcelona Healthcare Architecture

Location: Meliana, Spain
Year: 2023
Client: Ajuntament de Meliana
Co-autor: Virai Arquitectura

The project develops a building, initially on the ground floor, with several open areas that allow the different functional spaces of the building to be related while providing environmental quality to the building and to the users. It is a unique building, with simple and clean lines, wide walls and a sustainable construction system that is perfectly suited to the needs of the Valencian Albufera: a building constructed of structural wood prefabricated with straw bale insulation inside.

Due to the geometry of the plot, the construction system of wide straw bales and the extensive program to be carried out on the ground floor, the building is considered as a closed volume on itself, but which in turn is related to the environment (parks , orchard, etc.) through the exterior and open spaces that are generated within the perimeter of the plot, as "bites" of the exterior rectangular geometry.

The building (2179 m2) allows its growth on a higher floor, to house a future residence for the elderly, under the updated and humanized model of coexistence units or groups of around 15-20 people in the same area.