Uganda Women’s and Children’s Clinic wins national AIA Healthcare Design Award

LS3P’s Uganda Women’s and Children’s Clinic has been honored with a national AIA Healthcare Design Award. Designed in partnership with GoDesign, a Savannah, GA-based non-profit client, the 20,000 square foot medical campus in rural Mityana, Uganda will provide lab spaces, maternity wards, patient rooms, emergency services, optometry, dental, doctor housing, and a physician training center targeting maternal and infant care. A chapel anchors the patient care buildings which cascade down the site, with interstitial spaces programmed to facilitate connection and wellness. The use of local materials and typologies creates an architecture that is uniquely African and deeply rooted in place, community, and making; passive solar design strategies such as a floating roof, solar chimneys, and strategic dogtrots will allow the net-zero equatorial campus to function without HVAC.

LS3P Architect and Senior Associate Matt Barnett, AIA, was a member of the design team. “This project is truly about solving problems for the people who need it most. The combination of doctors, nonprofits, pro-bono architecture, local contractors, and community stakeholders has allowed the project to project a holistic future of meaningful engagement for healthcare, building techniques, and training medical professionals,” he explains. “In order to achieve these lofty goals, the architecture needed to embody feedback from all stakeholders, and community members were engaged in the design process.”

The AIA Jury expressed elation as to the profound impact this clinic will have on its community. “The goals of this project are fabulous, and the jury likes how those goals extend beyond the building to the community and include programs like job training and general community wellness,” the Jury notes.

GoDesign, partners with local American doctors and African locals to fund, design, and build unique solutions for healthcare, living, and educational spaces. The pro bono design was donated as part of LS3P’s vision to create “architecture that enriches communities,” and the campus is currently under construction in Uganda.

About LS3P

Founded in 1963, LS3P is an architecture, interiors, and planning firm with regional roots and national reach. Operating from its eleven offices in Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Asheville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington, and Savannah, LS3P is deeply committed to the communities in which it serves, and has been honored with over 650 design awards in diverse practice areas. For more information on LS3P, visit www.ls3p.com.