The characteristics of this architectural project are based on the actual location of the building, in a fragile landscape environment situated on the limit between the built city and the countryside, building a large roof whose geometry, in the manner of artificial topography, characterises its image by giving priority to the orientation and the magnificent views.
The Institute for Ocular Microsurgery (IMO) is an ophthalmology clinic dedicated to treating ocular diseases as well as to protecting and conserving vision. This project has its origin in an ideas competition organised in September 2002, won by the proposal submitted by Josep Llinàs. Given its recent inauguration, it is easy to deduce that the processes of conception and execution have been lengthy and probably difficult as a consequence, fundamentally in the various urban planning adjustments it needed to do. Thus, from the initial proposal to its final form, the project has undergone numerous changes, as can be observed in the series of scale models that accompany the graphic documentation, always taking into account the relationship that the building needed to establish with its unique location: a powerfully sloping site on the foothills of the Sierra de Collserola, facing the city and the sea, next to the Ronda de Dalt ring road, the limit where the city ends and the countryside begins, in a location that greatly conditions the decision to use the topography or the slopes of the site as an instrument to define the building’s morphology.
This is a building of over 22.000 metres square of built space that incorporates, besides the specific programme for the ophthalmological clinic (operating theatres, consultation rooms, waiting rooms…) areas not related to health care such as classrooms, labs, a library and an assembly hall as well as parking, with the purpose of fostering teaching and research, plus installations fitted out for hosting any type of event. The assembly hall or auditorium seats up to 350 people for special events, to which other meeting rooms are added: one holding 50 people and two further ones for 20 people each.
Access from the street is via an exterior walkway situated in the main façade, protected by different roofs whose purpose is to filter the sunlight, while forming a whole that folds at the top part and is structured with overhangs acting as visors to protect this façade from excessive sunlight. This produces a filtered sunlight gradation aimed at providing a gradual increase of comfort for the users of this building. Under this umbraculum is a terraced space with landscaped areas.
