Kálida Sant Pau

In this project, beauty is a matter of care for the spirit and commitment to helping others, with a center that offers moral support to cancer patients and their families. In the awareness that architecture is a sort of third skin – after the body and its garments – shaped around the life that exists inside it, bringing therapeutic value.

Centro Kálida is a welcoming dwelling, a warm, serene atmosphere, a place to feel at home, surrounded by beautiful things, in spite of going through a difficult moment of life. A house that translates into a small garden-pavilion inside the Art Nouveau complex of the Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona, designed at the start of the 20th century by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, master of Catalan modernism, and included by UNESCO in its world heritage listings.

A micro-city composed of a cluster of pavilions, internal streets, a church and a convent. Here, the pavilion of the new millennium extends with its organic forms across an area of 400 square meters, inside a large park that is an integral part of the health care complex, with balanced new green zones and connections between the buildings and the urban fabric. The complex is on two levels, following the shape of the terrain, with a hexagonal layout that guides the organization of the spaces on the basis of the various activities they contain.

The ground floor, open to the garden, hosts all the communal areas, which rotate around a central two-story dining hall, separated in a flexible way from the entrance, the kitchen, a small library and a multifunctional space thanks to sliding doors. The facility offers sessions with psychologists, stress-management courses, workshops for art and creative writing.

Outside, in the garden, a pathway with a decorative pattern directly connects the center to the oncological sector of the hospital, while a sequence of patios, pergolas and islands of greenery of variable height ensures the privacy of the guests, offering exceptional views of nature.

On the upper level the private rooms are organized around a central two-story space for the lounge, and feature large windows to establish a visual dialogue with the historic buildings of the Sant Pau complex. Seen from their upper levels, Centro Kálida is recognizable thanks to its green ceramic roof, inspired by the floral motifs and Art Nouveau memories of the site.

Like the roof, the facades of the building also feature a composition of vertical brick walls that incorporate glazed ceramic motifs, mutable in their colors and geometric forms. Refined multicolored material solutions are interrupted by the windows facing the garden (with wooden casements), allowing light to spread fluidly through the interiors.

In every space the furnishings designed by Patricia Urquiola with her studio apply materials and colors in pursuit of the same fluid sensation of natural vitality and wellbeing. Under her guidance, leading companies like Arlex, Cappellini, Flos, Listone Giordano, Moroso and Mutina have donated furnishings, design objects and coverings, produced for the occasion. Centro Kálida Sant Pau has been made possible by private foundations and a network of donors and volunteers, including the doctors.