This is our entry for the Design for the Children competition which involved designing a children's hospital in East Africa. We came second.
The daily realities of inaccessible and/or unavailable basic health services are an everyday shackle bound to communities in the developing countries throughout East Africa. A comprehensive and tangible design solution for a natal clinic in rural East Africa required a responsive solution that provided opportunities for health care and education where notions of refuge and access co-exist. This proposal endeavors to contribute through solutions based design a place of dignity and humanity with and for the community.
This project is non site specific, however it is expected that the site is relatively flat or moderately sloped. The original design motivation was strongly informed by the lack of the land’s most precious resource – clean water. The concept of an expansive canopy was largely driven by the necessity to harvest water as an essential commodity for the operation of a clinic that endeavo rs to provide health care to a multitude of disadvantaged communities which exist, and compete for resources and opportunities. The simple design solution evolved from a pragmatic layering of parts – a central communal space encased by a grid of circulatory paths from which private sections and subsidiary gathering spaces are accessed, with an expansive canopy centred along the building’s longitudinal axis. This proposed spatial discipline, although rigid in plan – allows for automatic orientation from within and externally. Essentially the prototype shown is a generic model of parts, which could easily be adapted and modified into a more compact, modest building or into one which sprawls with the land and the nature of its demands. The broad and generous feature roof canopy defines the form and shape of the building. This element oversails much of the building structure in attempt to encourage airflow between the lower buildings and the canopy and functions as a cooling device. It functions both as protective shelter from the sun as well as providing an extensive catchment area for harvesting rainwater - an essential resource for the hospital.
