Emergency Children's Surgery Center, completed, by RPBW
13/10/2021.
[Entebbe] Uganda
metalocus, CARLOS GONZÁLEZ
metalocus, CARLOS GONZÁLEZ
Project description by RPBW
Our vision of Africa has recently undergone a slow but steady development, from neglected continent to the new frontier of an evolving world. The challenge of this new project of Emergency NGO is to combine the practical requirements of a paediatric surgery hospital in Africa with the desire to create a model piece of architecture: rational, tangible, modern, beautiful, but firmly linked to tradition. It will be more than a mere hospital: it will be the first architectural work in Africa designed by someone who, over the past decades, has actually written the story of architecture. This project is a sign of extreme symbolic importance for the promotion of health care and culture in Uganda, and in the entire Africa.
The building will follow the curves that slope down to the lake. By following the course of the land, the hospital walls and the boundaries of its outdoor pathways will form terraces on which the hospital itself will stand, in a spatial continuum between interior and exterior, above and below. The stacked walls will break the distinction between the various zones, creating a unity between the lake, the park and the internal hospital environment.
Earth is the raw material used to build the homes of the poorest people in most parts of the world. It’s a simple, cheap building technique but one which, in Africa, is associated by most people with a past of poverty that needs to be forgotten. We were fascinated by the idea of giving back some dignity to this technique, using the excavated land to build the load-bearing walls with the rammed earth technique. The rammed earth technique is an ancient building method involving a mixture of earth, sand, gravel, binding agents and a little water, compressed in wooden or metal frames or moulds. The great advantage is that the material is available locally, and there’s no need for cement or highly specialised workers. An eye on sustainability, right from the construction phase.
This building, born from the earth, will get its energy from the sun. Indeed, the roof will be made from a suspended trellis structure supporting 9,800 square metres of photovoltaic panels (equal to the surface of a football pitch). This system will ensure that the hospital has an autonomous electricity supply during the day. It will also be connected to the main line, to provide energy to the surrounding area at times when consumption is low. The photovoltaic roof, “floating” above the building, will also guarantee shade for the hospital and all the uncovered walkways.
Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 to a family of builders. He graduated Milan Polytechnic in 1964 and began to work with experimental light-weight structures and basic shelters. In 1971, he founded the Piano & Rogers studio and, together with Richard Rogers, won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, Piano collaborated with engineer Peter Rice, founding Atelier Piano & Rice in 1977. In 1981, he established the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with offices today in Genoa, Paris and New York. Renzo Piano has been awarded the highest honors in architecture, including; the Pritzker Prize; RIBA Royal Gold Medal; Medaille d’Or, UIA; Erasmus Prize; and most recently, the Gold Medal of the AIA.