Africa Design Competition - Farrow Okpanum Clark Nexsen
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South Africa's national flower, the Protea, sits at the heart of the HPLC as a metaphor for healing and renewal
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Winner
Protea Health
Submission by Farrow Partnership, Ngonyama Okpanum & Associates and Clark Nexsen
This joint submission puts the national flower of South Africa, the Protea, at the heart of its scheme. Its form sits at the heart of the HPLC, open to the sky and acting as a beacon for users – the symbol of a safe and healthy gathering place, and a metaphor for healing and renewal.
Extensive outdoor features include sheltered waiting and circulation areas, gardens, worship/meditation areas, and a ‘learning kitchen’ where nutritional counselling and cooking practice takes place. Indoors are outpatient clinics (including antenatal, dental, TB/HIV/AIDS and traditional healing); retail space (a pharmacy and optician), educational space (family planning, counselling), clinics, a library and a theatre. A strong emphasis is placed on learning, with classrooms provided for training in subjects as diverse as malaria net installation and sustainable farming; the HPLC will also train health workers.
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| Guided and inspired by nature, Protea Health is a exemplar for sustainability |
The central flower-shaped opening in the building facilitates passive air circulation, while below-floor air circulation feeds passive air movement up through the roof vents. Further sustainable features include solar photovoltaics on the roof, composting and rainwater collection. The building is single storey, for ease of construction.
“Guided and inspired by nature, the HPLC will leverage salutogenic design principles to advance the physical, mental, social and spiritual dimensions of health,” said the team’s submission. “It will also be an exemplar facility for high performance, operational efficiency and environmental regeneration.”
Its vision is for a “Centre of Influence” equivalent to the hospital-based Centre of Excellence: “Whereas the well-established concept of the Centre of Excellence is recognised as the source for outstanding downstream illness care, this South African centric innovation will change how people think about their lives. It will set an international standard for promoting the full range of upstream causes of health, which will be seen as appealing, understandable and accessible to everyone.”
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| Township setting |
Rural setting |
Urban setting |
Click here to download the full submission.
What the judges said
"In this scheme the Protea, national flower for South Africa, serves as a metaphor for hope, healing, and renewal, its form carefully placed at the heart of the health promoting lifestyle center (HPLC). Designed to serve as a community landmark housing a wide variety of health, education, retail, library and theater spaces, the Protea HPLC solution gently blends a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces in a sustainable architecture in a most elegant way. The Protea HPLC will set an international standard for salutogenic design that explores and promotes the full range of the causes of health."
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