Surgical Block and ICU. Vall d'Hebron Hospital

Vall d'Hebron, Spain

Photo © Francisco Villaescusa

Architects: AHEAD Barcelona Healthcare Architecture

Location: Vall d'Hebron, Spain
Year: 2010
Client: Servei Català de la Salut

This is a unique project in the General Hospital building. The design comes from the need to rationalize and bring together the different surgical and post-operation recovery areas. By doing this the transfer of patients is improved and the crossed patient & public circulations is solved. We decided to develop two medical and one technical plan above the back wings of the existing building. This was because of the lack of space within the Medical Campus and the functional necessity to connect the new surgical and ICU areas with hospitalizations areas. The structural design concept is to avoid the workloads onto the old building, using it only as a bracing core. According to this, the new floors lean on uncovered large span girders built on top of exterior pillars. The new floors hang on large girders by steel pillars, like a kind of bridge construction. In order to avoid collisions with public circulations, a new 10-floored vertical core is located in one of the central courtyards, connecting all the in-patient and emergency areas with the new surgical and ICU block.