Kéré Architecture designs perforated brick health clinic in Burundi
Berlin studio Kéré Architecture has revealed its design for the Ineza Clinic, which will step up a hillside in rural Burundi within a series of brick pavilions.
Designed for the city of Bubanza, around 30 miles north of Burundi's capital, the health centre will be built from predominantly local materials to reduce the cost of transportation.
Taking advantage of the site's topography, the health facility will consist of 10 buildings arranged on either side of a zigzagging road that progresses up a hill. Kéré Architecture said this arrangement will also facilitate cross ventilation.
At the base of the slope, visitors will arrive at a small entrance pavilion, before coming to a cafe and toilet block.
Halfway up the hill, the larger wards, treatment blocks and outpatient units each tend along the hillside from the main drive.
Finally, at the top of the hill is a trio of housing blocks for visitors, with a lounge topping the site.
According to the studio, which is led by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Diébédo Francis Kéré, high fuel costs in the country led to the focus on local material sourcing.
Before designing the facility, the studio visited brick factories, welding workshops and wood-processing plants in the surrounding area to map out local resources.
All of the clinic's buildings will share a similar aesthetic, with locally sourced brick walls broken by perforated sections to allow light and air to enter.
They will be crowned with monopitch roofs wrapped with vertical timber batons, raised on retaining walls of stone sourced from nearby quarries.
"In a place where travelling less than forty kilometres can take up to three hours because of poor road conditions, having a clinic in close proximity is vital for survival," said Kéré Architecture.
"This clinic in Bubanza makes that difference. When you imagine a pregnant woman in the back of an ambulance, trying to reach care over those roads, you begin to understand just how essential nearby access to medical treatment is for the community."
Work on the health facility has already begun, with the first stage of the clinic set to open later this year.
According to the studio, the project was heavily informed by its own Léo Surgical Clinic and Health Centre in Burkina Faso, which was one of 10 of the architect's significant buildings we included in a roundup to mark Kéré winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Elsewhere, Kéré Architecture is also currently designing the Las Vegas Museum of Art and the Biblioteca dos Saberes in Rio de Janeiro, which will also feature facades of perforated brick.
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