RETIREMENT HOME FOR THE ELDERLY IN SALAMANCA

This project was proposed to encourage the elderly who live at the home to continue their life project. It is committed to an overall image that combines exposed brickwork and vegetation as symbols of quality, durability and landscape and cultural integration.

The interior layout has been reorganised to improve the orientation of the rooms and to achieve spaces that respond to the criteria of coexisting units.

In addition, the creation of a public square was proposed, as a mixture of spaces, where the boundaries between city and facilities and exterior and interior are diluted, promoting the hybridisation of activities and uses.

Functionally, the project proposed the removal of the basement to place the entire logistics area on the ground floor with direct connection to the loading bay. All the common areas of both the Day Centre and the Home have also been relocated to the ground floor, both sharing the general public space but maintaining their independence of access and operation. It has 158 beds on the first, third and second floor.

The typical double room of the Home has been removed in order to design individual bedrooms with a common area in every two bedrooms. Each user has a room with utmost privacy and different living spaces, ranging from interaction with the neighbour to interaction with the entire wing of rooms, simulating the relationships that are established in the city. It is argued that it is in the variety of common spaces that the richness and spontaneity of social relations are found.