EDDEA’s design for the Cazorla High-Resolution Hospital Centre wins at the 2020 AIT Awards

The High-Resolution Hospital Centre (CHARE) designed by EDDEA in the heart of the Sierra de Cazorla (Jaén) has won third prize in the Health/Care category of ‘Best in Interior&Architecture’ at the AIT Awards 2020, one of the world’s leading competitions in architecture and interior design, which this year attracted 877 projects from 47 countries.

Established in 2012, these biennial awards bring together interior design and architecture, focusing on projects developed in Europe, North America, the Middle East and the Far East. They comprise several categories and are open to all kinds of projects, which are assessed by an international jury that traditionally meets in the church of St. Katharinen in Hamburg (Germany).

The Cazorla CHARE, opened at the end of 2019, is a healthcare facility with a distinctive approach: it is woven into its territory, seeking to bind the clinic to its natural setting and to make the surroundings a fundamental part of patients’ recovery.

The AIT Awards jury noted that “for the architects, the landscape of the Andalusian province of Jaén resembles a natural ‘amphitheatre’ crossed by the Guadalquivir river and its tributaries. This particular setting was therefore to play a decisive role in the design of the new hospital. Local materials such as ceramics and bricks played an important part in its execution. The roof’s characteristic colour was achieved by mixing in volcanic stone”.

The jury also highlighted the “topographic framework” and the “sensitive use of materials, incorporating traditional typologies of the Andalusian landscape”. “The landscape space flows into the building and thus underlines its effect as a building of shade. With views of the surrounding settlements (the white villages), the strategy of atmosphere and materiality proves particularly apt and once again underlines the careful handling of a building programme that is not easy for this site,” its citation adds.

The project in detail

The Cazorla CHARE is made up of several blocks arranged around irregular courtyards, all connected through a single entrance hall, the main access to the complex. The hall thus acts as a link between the building’s different areas, easing circulation between them.

The design is organised over three floors. The middle floor holds the main entrance and several rooms for the most common and urgent care. The ground floor houses operating theatres and restricted-access diagnostic rooms, while the upper floor, the smallest, provides intervention and inpatient services.

White, characteristic of some of the villages in the area, was chosen for these interiors, together with natural stone and glass, the latter intended to carry light through the space.

The grounds around the building were landscaped to meet the planned needs: shrubs, conifers and other forest species surround the complex, turning its setting into a pleasant, restorative space.

And in seeking to attune the complex to the olive groves and the sierra, the design also adopted a palette of browns and materials such as ceramics and brick – a nod to the region’s pottery tradition – used on the ventilated façade, along with volcanic gravel on the roofs.