Approachable heathcare for the disadvantaged

·October 1, 2014

Mumbai based architectural practice JDAP was recently awarded Honourable Mention for its entry ‘Under Wings of Care’ for the recently concluded Moved to Care International Design Competition organised by Building Trust International. The competition challenge focused on the provision of healthcare to rural and/ or isolated groups in Asia, that could also be carried forward for refugee and displaced groups elsewhere in the region and globally.

JDAP’s solution was based on the idea of a rapidly deployable Centre that could be ‘unfolded’ onto a location with minimum on-site preparatory work. A selection of appropriate material and technologies, alongwith a focus on the spatial quality of the centre as a Space for Healing formed the core ideas of the proposed design.

Proposed Architectural Layout

Sectional Elevations

Competition Text:

For a region that needs to rapidly expand the delivery of quality heathcare to a large under-served population – most of which is largely rural – focus for the traveling Healthcare Centre must be as much about its “approachability” as about its “relocatability”.

Wings of Care takes a nuanced view of the sterile, forbidding spaces of healthcare and transforms them into Spaces of Joy that embrace their natural setting and provide a friendly, humane environment that is welcoming and reassuring to its patients. The building platform of the Centre is based on a robust, lightweight, easily transportable system with local bamboo as its primary component.

9 Steps Installation – Hard Box to Soft Envelope

The dimensional limitation of the project is based on its transportability. For a Centre that must travel off highways and onto rural roads, the standard shipping container size was discarded in favour of a smaller module that can sit at the back of a 20-feet flatbed truck.

Concept Evolution

The primary structural component is a Fabric-covered Bamboo Parabolic Arch. The arch has pivoted arms that open up to form weather-protection canopies over the building openings. Seven arches open to form a 135° sector that makes up a single module. The circular form allows for shorter circulation paths while enclosing courtyards that then form the heart of the Centre.

There are two Courtyards around which the Centre is organised – the Out-patient facilities including Consulting Rooms, Medical store and large covered flexible waiting spaces cluster around the Outer Court, while the Inner Court forms a more secluded sanctum for the Recovery and Rehabilitation Centre and Operation Theatre.

The entire Centre is designed to be collapsible and stackable into a total of Six containers, which themselves form part of the Centre once it has been ‘deployed’!