Sustainable model for regional hospitals in humid tropical climate

Abstract

Developing countries are facing numerous challenges in the process of providing adequate health care to often deprived and diminished social groups. In countries and regions with poor road infrastructure, this often means that the population outside major urban centres is even physically incapable of getting some sort of health aid in a timely manner. Being a country made up of a mainland territory and five islands in Gulf of Guinea, almost entirely covered by tropical rainforest, Equatorial Guinea is a showcase of various obstructions in developing effective health care system. The sustainable primary, secondary and tertiary health care assumes good accessibility as well as proper understanding of local conditions. The paper presents a model for sustainable health care building – a local hospital capable of providing all basic types of health service while retaining a high level of technical independence. The architectural design for a regional hospital was developed aiming to maximize the use of natural ventilation, daylight and rainwater management, leaving the operation block, laboratory and intensive care unit practically the only parts of the structure that would need mechanical air conditioning. The layout was designed having in mind local culture and customs, thus offering a possibility of strong integration with local community, and the building technology was thought over to enable efficient and costeffective construction and proper resilience for tropical rainforest environment. The result is a structure providing for contemporary, high quality medical service, interpreting local climatic and cultural contextual premises through modern architectural expression. Some design features developed for regional hospital were also explored in somewhat different conditions – a major clinical centre (in Malabo, the capital) and a local health centre with the basic services for the most remote areas.