FACING THE FUTURE OF FACADES: A long facade embedded in the mountain

Barcelona is wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and the Collserola mountain range, a massif considered to be one of the largest metropolitan parks in Europe. The new building of the VHIR Vall d'Hebron Research Institute is located at the foot of the Collserola hillside. Its appearance as a single piece, with a long single facade, responds both to its location and to the circumstances that precede it.

This area, located to the west of the Montbau neighbourhood, has been populated in a disorderly manner and without prior planning since the Vall d'Hebron Hospital opened its doors in 1955. This hospital has various public facilities, a university and pioneering research centres, that are all related to medical care. They make up what is known as the Health City or Hospital Campus of Vall d'Hebron, the largest in Catalonia, with more than 50,000 people using the area.

The authors of the project explain that the new VHIR building is part of an urban redevelopment of the area. It stems from a general reflection on the chaotic construction of the Hospital Campus and its notable accessibility problems. The transformation has begun with the new building for cutting-edge research. At the same time, it is part of a proposal that aims to build a large park in the area, connecting it to the surrounding neighbourhoods and improving the accessibility and permeability of the site.

In this desire to renaturalise the area and restore it to its status as a natural park, albeit a built one, the new building has been embedded in the mountainside and has only one facade. Its authors see it as ‘A fold in the topography’. It is intended to be a backdrop to the lower platform and literally disappears from the upper level where it becomes an extension of the Collserola mountain landscape.

The long, horizontal volume is offset by the vertical sequence of columns that form a porch on the ground floor. This colonnade is repeated on the upper floor, unifying the first and second floors, set back from the facade, with a single double-height corridor. The floor plan is organised around three courtyards, one of which opens onto the facade and gives rise to a new public square. The laboratories are grouped around the courtyards, which, as the architects explain, encourage a series of routes, combining interiors and exteriors to generate spaces for leisure and meeting.

Although it is large in size, it seeks to blend into its surroundings through its single facade and the concrete tinted with the reddish colour of the mountain rock. To this is added the roof, which is occupied by a garden with low-maintenance vegetation, which will become an extension of the university campus-park that surrounds it. It also connects with the green forest of Collserola.

With a total surface area of 16,792 m², the new VHIR brings together departments of the Research Institute that were spread across different buildings on the site. It includes scientific and technical support facilities where the cyclotron (particle accelerator) and an advanced therapies centre are located. On the ground floor there are a reception area, an assembly hall, a cafeteria and the administration offices.

The project will conclude with the construction of two large flat walkways that cross the site horizontally and connect it to the neighbourhoods of Montbau and Sant Genís dels Agudells on either side. There will also be a vertical axis with escalators that facilitate access on foot from the Ronda de Dalt to the Collserola mountain. With the new VHIR building and the development plan within which it is framed, architecture and urban planning begin the process of catching up to the prestige enjoyed by the Vall d'Hebron hospital and research university campus at a European level.

All pictures © BAAS + Espinet Ubach