Paediatric hospital in East Africa 01/2009
competition entry, Design for the children, organised by Fight for the children, Architecture for humanity, American Institute of Architects
The brief asked for a small-scale building meant to be used in the poor rural areas of East Africa. The programme consists of two phases, with the second one bigger than the first one. The hospital would be serving a vast area, so people would be travelling far to get to it. Besides the medical facilities it is supposed to educate and give guidance on prevention of various deceases.
Security was of primal consideration for the project. The proposed solution uses the very buildings of the hospital as a fence. In such a way an internal court space is created. This court space plays various community functions: education, sleeping, waiting space, etc. The inner court is covered with a construction on top of which solar panels are fixed. This structure creates shadow for the waiting patients. At the centre of the court, just under the solar panels construction is placed the water tank.
The hospital is made out of a ring of pavilions. The pavilions are of a different size, depending on the space requirements for the various functions. They all have an opaque wall tuned to the exterior of the compound and a transparent one turned to the interior. Each part of the pavilion arrangement could function separately: it could be rebuild, cleansed, closed or even torn down without hindering the functioning of other pavilions or the compound as a whole. The proposed construction could be build in various terrain conditions from cheap, easily available materials. The compound expands easily by adding in a fractal fashion more nuclei of pavilions that enclose internal courts.
hospital + fence
hospital -> fence
hospital = fence
internal court
plan of phase 1
plan of phase 2 - expansion
pavilion elements
birdeye view of phase 1