Responding to the growing demand for medical tourism, the main economic activity in the city of Tijuana, Mexico, New City Medical Plaza is a unique mixed complex in the country that houses a medical tower that offers clinics of different specialties, operating rooms, rehabilitation spas. , medical offices and alternative medicine centers together with a luxury hotel specialized for this type of market. The architectural program also includes an exhibition center, shopping areas and a gastronomic area that guarantee a comprehensive experience for users.

Rethinking The Future Awards 2022
Second Award | Healthcare / Wellness (Built)

©Onnis Luque

The economic profile of medical services that characterizes Tijuana is the result of multiple economic forces related to its geographical location and to the economic promotion. The demand for these health services has triggered the generation of business and with it investment, which has made the health sector the third largest generating force for investment in Baja California. New City Medical Plaza is conceived as the first mixed health complex that meets all the needs of this market in one place. All this with a privileged location on the Paseo Centenario Tijuana, just 500 meters from the border with San Diego, the busiest border in the world. The innovation of commercial urban development emerges in New City Medical Plaza, the architecture in this case solves the economic needs of an entire territory, the building is designed thinking about the type of city that Tijuana will be in a medium-term period and consolidates the city as one of the most important when talking about medical tourism in the world.

©Onnis Luque

The difference in the uses of the architectural program volumetrically creates two displaced towers on the same axis and in opposite locations on the land that are linked by a central body that houses the public use areas and the commercial plaza. The volumetry was the response to the complex variables involved in the design of a building with so many different uses, hospital logistics dictates different specifications at the structural level, as well as the entry mechanisms and the management of hospital waste and waste, all these conditions They were able to be solved without altering the architectural language, physically separating this area from the rest of the complex.

©Onnis Luque

The design seeks to create public space in two layers, the first given by the public square at street level and the second the commercial square on the first level, this elevated square which is accessed from the avenue is an invitation to the user to enter in the project and its elevation intentionally relates the central body of the complex with the existing vegetation in its immediate context.

The entire volume is embraced by a double perforated skin that, in addition to providing character to the project, is designed to provide solar control to the interior of the building, this is achieved together with the installation of a double glazing that achieves high parameters of thermal comfort and maximum transparency that provides a greater amount of natural light to the interior of the building.