The small town of Illueca lies in a rift valley, flanked by the massifs of the Sierra de la Virgen and Sierra de la Camamila mountain ranges, which run close to the Moncayo Nature Reserve (Zaragoza, Spain). It is in this setting that Permán & Franco Architects Studio have built a primary-care health center, with a distinctive design and ventilated façade by Faveker.
The Illueca Health Centre stands in a new development area of the town, providing the region with healthcare services, including 11 nearby towns and villages. It was built on an almost 1,400 m2 plot of land featuring an over two-meter drop between the entrance at street level and the land used as a base for the building.
The main floor of the Health Centre is on the same level as the access area from the street, although the building is set back a few meters so that the pavement could be widened and a free-standing canopy erected, separate from the building, to shelter the entrance and add to the project’s characteristic hallmark.
At the rear of the building, a platform was built as a delivery area and car park. The building is a big, compact volume with four identical floors and no intermediate columns, so as to allow for future modifications if needed.
This is a building that is designed to stand out, albeit with a certain discretion, and is located in an area of the town that is yet to be developed. To achieve this goal, the architects opted for a highly original ventilated façade by Faveker, featuring a combination of flat and volumetric extruded ceramic tiles with an expressive metal-effect finish, evocative of the titanium used to make them.
The façade’s prefabricated window frames jut out slightly so that its windows contribute to the façade’s unique composition. At the same time, the metal-effect finish of the tiles changes color depending on the interplay with the light. This gives the building a chameleonic air so that it stands out from the rest of the town’s architecture.
The tiles –from the GA 16 tile collection– were mounted using the FTS 502A mechanical fixing system, made up of continuous horizontal profiles fixed to vertical ones. Thanks to the horizontal joints, the tiles overlap, leading to a highly versatile system that protects the air chamber and optimizes the weight of the façade.
The building envelope, made of extruded porcelain tiles, also stands out for its high-performance thermal properties; a particularly important factor, given that this is an area with big temperature contrasts. The tongue-and-grooved design of the tiles prevents water from entering the air chamber, avoiding problems of dampness and therefore ensuring a long-lasting ensemble.
The tiled ventilated façade can reduce the building’s energy consumption by 40%. It is also a sustainable solution, given that it is fully recyclable and the tiles contain up to 46% recycled content. The system can be dismantled, hence complying with circular economy requirements.
The building was designed to meet the necessary criteria as a healthcare center and to overcome urban planning constraints. The ground floor of the four-story building, at street level, contains the technical room, while the lower floor houses the administrative offices, the emergency service and the phlebotomy unit, and the two top floors contain the doctors’ surgeries.
For more information, visit the Permán & Franco Architects Studio and Faveker websites.