Redondo’s Health Centre

Redondo, Portugal 2009

The exterior spaces’ design of the Health Centre of Redondo aims to combine their main function – people and car circulations - with other secondary, but not less important, the creation of comfortable living areas where one can enjoy different textures, scents, light and shadow conditions, provided by the proposed inert and living materials.

Due to the three meters’ height difference between the street and the Health Centre’s platform, a series of green terraces were created, uneven in about 1 meter, sustained by low walls, where a set of stairs and platforms are placed to provide pedestrian access, also allowing to rest or “be” in a place from where one has a privileged view of part of the village and of the neighbour field.

Near the building is created a courtyard to protect the offices from the adjoining road and to allow the entrance of light. Its function is almost exclusively of visual framing so the soil is covered with a loose inert material from which emerges a discontinuous green stripe.

The wide pedestrian access to the building from the parking area and from the village centre is paved with a regular and comfortable cobble, where trees and urban furniture are placed so that this area is turned into an outdoor waiting room.