Sant’Andrea Hospital, established in 2001, is the teaching hospital of the Second Medicine Faculty of University “La Sapienza” in Rome. This project, which involves an extension of the second faculty of medicine and surgery, is set up as a system of two parallelepipeds, one incorporated into the other. The internal volume, (where there are research laboratories and teaching classrooms), is protected and shielded from a semi-transparent volume of metal mesh. The plan is contained in the space between the two volumes.

This technological solution translates to a dynamic dialogue between the building and its “skin”, becoming a symbol of the human body and evoking a medical gaze that analyzes it. The diaphaneity of the covering allows the recognition of the building use with a strong technological component. The façade solution allows the building to reduce the surface area of the atriums and technical rooms, by leaving more space and flexibility to the didactic spaces.

Inside, the building is arranged around a central courtyard, a large void in the shape of a truncated pyramid, with a skylight at the top, that radiates the connective spaces that overlook in it. The parapets of the latter are light-colored material bands that mark vertically the rhythm of the floors, by favoring a light and shade game interrupted by four sculptural stairs that cross it.