Els Pilars
The building is located to the south of Tàrrega, on an open plot in direct contact with the agricultural landscape, where it is conceived as a public landmark for the entire region. The process that made its realization possible highlights the collective and transformative nature of architecture. Promoted by the Association of Relatives of Alzheimer’s Patients of Tàrrega and the surrounding area, in collaboration with the City Council, public administrations, and a team of young architects, the project understands architecture as a tool for social cohesion — capable of generating dignified, accessible, and emotionally supportive environments for a particularly vulnerable population, while reinforcing the role of the county capital as a healthcare and community hub.
The building’s organization is structured around a clear and recognizable geometry: a four-armed cross arranged around a central courtyard. This layout facilitates spatial orientation for users, shortens circulation routes, and avoids situations of disorientation, which are common among people with cognitive impairment. Each wing accommodates a distinct functional area — administration, personalized care, workshops, and shared spaces — all of which maintain visual and physical connections to protected courtyards and gardens. This relationship promotes continuity between interior and exterior spaces, natural daylight, cross-ventilation, and contact with nature as part of the therapeutic process.
The construction system is based on dry, prefabricated building methods, using columns and long-span hollow-core slab floors that allow for open, flexible spaces easily adaptable to future needs. This strategy reflects a conscious economy of means, optimizing resources, reducing construction time, and ensuring high durability with low maintenance requirements.
Materiality is conceived as an active component of the spatial experience. The use of exposed concrete, wood, and light tones creates serene, warm, and easily legible environments, where noble materials, employed in an almost raw state, are intended to age with dignity, acquiring patina and character over time. Rather than being concealed, the structure forms part of both the interior and exterior landscape, avoiding superfluous finishes and emphasizing constructive honesty.
From an environmental standpoint, the building is designed according to nearly zero-energy consumption criteria, combining passive strategies — orientation, insulation, natural cross-ventilation, and solar control — with high-efficiency active systems based on renewable energy sources, such as aerothermal heating and photovoltaic generation.
The center is not merely a functional building, but a space of care, encounter, and dignity, where spatial clarity, light, connection to the surroundings, and constructive efficiency are placed at the service of well-being, autonomy, and quality of life for users, families, and staff. The project thus asserts the cultural, social, and ethical dimension of architecture as a discipline capable of responding — through technical rigor and human sensitivity — to the challenges of population aging, social inclusion, and territorial sustainability.
