La Nostra Famiglia – Sports and Rehabilitation Centre

date: 1999 – 2002
customer: Colombo Costruzioni spa (General Contractor)
objecxt:  Association “La Nostra Famiglia”, Bosisio Parini, (Lc). New sports and rehabilitation centre of the hospitalisation and treatment Institute “E. Medea”
location: Bosisio Parini (LC)
size data:
Surface: 3,500 sq.m.;
Volumetry: 15,330 c.m.
project stage: Preliminary, definitive, executive project and art direction. Coordinated image.

The involvement of the Studio concerned the realisation of a swimming pool area located in the widest complex of the already existing pavilions of the Associazione “la Nostra Famiglia” in Bosisio Parini. In the new structure, used as a sports and rehabilitation swimming pool, paediatric patients suffering from neuron-motor handicaps and patients suffering from general traumas are assisted.

The building is positioned on the inside of an area used by the hospital, where there are currently six treatment pavilions. The work tries to respect this pre-existence, sharing among them the parallelisms and the principle axes and using the delicate model of the surrounding area as a hidden join between the different heights, increasing the vegetation, which is very important for these particular types of wards.

 The building appears to the visitor as a large leaf lying on the grass: integration with a large green area is mediated by the emerging parts in glass that establish a reciprocal link between the inside and the outside, and is enhanced by the cover with a perennial vegetation blanket. The structure winds along two levels of the connecting pedestrian and systems axis that connects the swimming pool area with the new Welcoming Pavilion.

Level -1 houses the service functions, (local technicians).

Level 0 is made up of the sports swimming pool and a shiny swimming pool for children that looks directly onto the external green area, an area for preparatory gymnastics and the respective changing rooms.

On the same level there are assistance rooms, therapy rooms, a first aid room and visitor bathrooms. On Al +1 the rehabilitative swimming pools and respective “assisted” changing rooms can be found. The 90 seat galleries can be reached using the metallic air walkway, which connects the different heights. The orientation and the distribution of the various internal flows of this part of the building are one of the elements that heavily influenced the design and collocation of functional areas.

Different types of routes were distinguished: ward user, non-ward user and external spectators. The covering of the area is composed of: a green cover, the glass façades and the vertical connection coated in plates of grès. The most important view is that of north, it is made up of an almost 9 metre high glass window with aluminium frames and an inner structure in steel. A low impact, light solution was adopted for the cover, comprised of horizontal structural modules with a wing shape, of narrow thickness in wood laminar and steel.

The horizontal surface, present along the slits that allow the night light to bathe the areas. The green cover uses perennial and evergreen plants that can vegetate an approximately 15 cm layer of cultivation. This stratification is contained in “tanks” shaped like insulating sandwich panels supported by a metallic under structure that rests on the steel and wood laminar beams.