EMERGENCY was founded in 1994 in Milan, to provide free, high-quality medical and surgical care to victims of war, landmines and poverty. It has worked in 19 countries, building hospitals, surgical centres, outpatient and mobile clinics, a maternity centre and a cardiac surgery centre. Also, at the request of local authorities and other organisations, they contribute to the restructuring and strengthening of existing facilities.

Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe, Uganda project design was carried out by Renzo Piano and the Studio RPBW workshop, with TAMassociati and Emergency’s technical department. The sustainability component was a requirement within EMERGENCY’s principles of Equality, Quality and Social Responsibility (EGS).

The services include three operating theatres, wards for 72 beds, diagnostic and ancillary services that include a laboratory, blood bank, pharmacy, canteen and laundry. It also has facilities training local staff, both medical and administrative. Particularly significantly, it also included a 36 bed guest house for visiting patients and relatives.

“Healthcare in Africa should be at the same level as it is in the Global North. This project comes with all the skills, equipment and technologies needed to start high-level surgery in an extraordinary facility. We are all part of the human family. We are ‘equal in dignity and rights’, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says. We have a responsibility to provide exactly the same level of treatment for African children that is expected in richer countries,” says Gino Strada, surgeon and founder of EMERGENCY.

“Gino asked me to design a ‘scandalously beautiful’ hospital. He uses that phrase because to some people, the idea of offering beauty and excellence to everyone, especially poor and marginalised people, is scandalous. In Swahili, the concept of beauty is linked to goodness. There is no beauty without goodness,” says Renzo Piano.

600mm thick, load bearing rammed earth walls constructed with locally sourced material and workforce provide both visual and functional quality. The suspended canopy structure provides shade and shelter to the entire hospital and supports 3600 m2 of PV panels providing all daytime power requirements. Entebbe has an annual average 2408 hours of sunlight.

Felix Holland, a partner in the Kampala multi-disciplinary design firm LOCALWORKS worked with the Hospital design team. ‘Pragmatic Idealism’ Green Architecture from Uganda is an inspirational class in tropical climate design. Localworks combine passive design with active and are guided by the local terrain, economic and logistical considerations and available materials and skills.

A public lecture by Felix Holland, co-founder of Localworks, held as a live online event on June 3rd 2021. Hosted by the Department of Architecture and Spatial Planning, Namibia University of Science and Technology.