Clinical

An Architecture of Variation with Repetition
María Hurtado de Mendoza

Clinical means “relating to a clinic”, but also “based on observation of an individual”. It also means “analytical”. This book is a clinical study of a trilogy of health-care centers built by estudio.entresitio in Madrid, Spain. A trilogy of three individuals, three case studies that share the same formal configuration and yet are perceived as different.
Books, as projects, have an initial stage of explosion in which many directions and possibilities are opened at once. Then comes a quieter stage, in which ideas are reorganized, distilled and rounded out. For this book, the detonator is drawing. A collection of analytical representations of the clinics are the foundation for an exploration of a number of questions in the project, in the search for their best translation. It is an iterative process in which words are a second step: they emphasize what the drawings may be already explaining and also provide an additional layer of information, structure and even room for debate.
Ideas regarding difference and repetition, ordering systems, materiality, program strategies and formal structure are unfolded in a sequential collection that talks about entresitio’s strategies in the conception of architectural space – the transfer from the world of ideas to physical realization.