House for elderly people by Aires Mateus Arquitectos - Dezeen

House for elderly people by Aires Mateus Arquitectos - Dezeen:

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House for elderly people by
Aires Mateus Arquitectos

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7 February 2011 | 40 comments

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Architectural photographer Fernando Guerra has sent us his images of a nursing home in Alcácer do Sal, Portugal, by Portuguese studio Aires Mateus Arquitectos.

The façade is reminiscent of a checkerboard, with its white surface punctured at intervals by recesses to shade its glazing.

The long building meanders over the site, rising and falling with the topography of the landscape.

A surrounding landscaped garden reaches up to the roof of at some parts, giving access to the top of the building.

Photographs are by Fernando Guerra.

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Here's some information from the architects:

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ALCÁCER DO SAL FORM

The project is based on a attentive reading of the life of a very specific kind of community, a sort of a micro-society with its own rules.

It is a program, somewhere in between a hotel and a hospital, that seeks to comprehend and reinterpret the combination social/private, answering to the needs of a social life, and at the same time of solitude.

Independents unities aggregate into a unique body, whose design is expressive and clear.

The reduct mobility of those who will live in the building suggests that any displacement should be an emotive and variable experience.

The distance between the independent units is measured and drawn to turn the idea of path into life, and its time into form.

The building, designed path, is a wall that naturally rises from the topography: it limits and defines the open space, organizing the entire plot.

Name of the project: Residências assistidas em Alcácer do Sal. Houses for eldery people in Alcácer do Sal.

Location: Alcácer do Sal (Portugal)

Date of project: 2006-2007

Date of construction: 2008-2010

Brief project description: Authors: Francisco Aires Mateus, Manuel Aires Mateus

Collaborators: Giacomo Brenna, Paola Marini, Anna Bacchetta, Miguel Pereira

Client: Santa Casa da Misericordia de Alcácer do Sal

Engineer: Engitarget, lda

Constructor: Ramos Catarino, Sa

Landscape architecture: ABAP Luis Alçada Batista

Footprint Area: 1560 m2

Floor Gross Area: 3640 m2

Y Clinic by Kimitaka Aoki

Y Clinic by Kimitaka Aoki:

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Y Clinic by Kimitaka Aoki
of ARCO Architects

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7 April 2013 | 5 comments

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This clinic by architect Kimitaka Aoki in the Ibaraki prefecture of Japan is designed to look like a cluster of smaller buildings (+slideshow).

Externally, Y-Clinic appears as four conjoined buildings creating a facade of protrusions and recesses with seemingly random windows and an uneven pitched roof.

These exterior irregularities are in fact the result of architect Kimitaka Aoki's sun trajectory studies and response to the surrounding scenery. These calculations result in an interior flooded with daylight and expansive views of paddy fields, cherry blossom and a river.

White walls and exposed wooden rafters that run in different directions depending on which roof section they support emphasise the varying internal volumes.

Aoki told Dezeen, "it’s important to directly express the shape and angle of each roof by leaving the rafters exposed".

Aoki is part of Japanese studio ARCO Architects.

Other clinics we've featured include Hackney studio Gort Scott's Cat Clinic, a vetinary practice with a subtly feline facade, and a Japanese hair treatment clinic by KORI architecture office and Arimoto Yushiro.

Photography is by Ippei Shinzawa.

Here's some more information from the architect:

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This clinic is located in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan. The place next to rice paddy and riverbed is surrounded by nature. There are rice paddy, riverbed, cherry blossom trees, and beautiful sky.

Client (female doctor) demanded no rigidly formal clinic. On the other hand she really demanded reasonable and efficient circulation of doctor, staff and patient.

We designed the clinic by some clues (scenery, seasonal winds, sun trajectory and neighboring buildings) . We found out concavo-convex shape plan with keeping reasonable circulations. And, we suggested characteristic forms which is four buildings with each different roof which is leaded to relationships between inside and outside environment. The format of this architecture is unique to particular places. Whole building form is generated there by some elements. All rooms are rich in light due to offered sunlight by concavo-convex shape plan and different roofs. We can feel inside-space like passing through under some mountains in clinic. This building could be seemed such as villages from people walking along riverbed.

It's important to for us to consider environmental interrelationship. We strongly desire that the clinic is loved by neighborhood inhabitant and as new symbol in this local area. Although architecture actually has fate as huge artifact, we have to design new architecture which could be integrated environment. Its “scenery” may be called as “new nature (semi-nature)” through their times and affection. It could be new shape of future clinic.

Architects: kimitaka aoki / ARCO architects

Location: tsuchiura , ibaraki , Japan

Architect In Charge : kimitaka aoki

Structural Engineer : yasuhiro kaneda

Area: 198.9 sqm

Year: 2013.03

Photographs: Ippei Shinzawa

Above: site plan

Above: floor plan

Above: long section