Rural Maternity & Child Health Clinic
The Datum Foundation x Orms Architects
This project is a collaboration involving
a charity organisation called ‘The Datum Foundation’ and Orms Architects and designers. DATUM funds and builds schools, health centres and maternity wards – constructed by local communities. In this case a rural maternity and child health clinic with a midwife learning centre.
A project based in Malawi, Africa.
I worked alongside an associate architect, Simon Whittaker, for this project and I was responsible for creating all of the drawings shown. This is a ground floor axonometric drawing exploring how the site will be populated. It also puts the clinics scale into perspective, illuminating how many people we can really help.
Datum Foundation have made it a priority to help fund and build a Healthcare Facility in Chisala, Malawi. The target is to raise £500,000.
The Meeting Hall
The Meeting Hall was designed to allow students to gather and learn in a beautiful atmosphere for learning, with a dynamic roof structure informed by the sun path and the way light will pour into the space. The perforated brick allows for the direct sun light to be broken down and dappled across the space, creating a subtle and soft learning environment, also containing a foldable partition to maximise the spaces use.
Materiality & Housing Modules
The main materials will be locally sourced in Malawi. These consist of handmade bricks, sand, aggregate and timber. The majority of the waiting area walls and boundary walls are variations of perforatd brick patterns, this was due to the high amounts of solar gain and heat, as well as allowing breeze to flow through. The meeting areas were designed to be very open and playful spaces, this was to increase the flexibility of their use.
The housing system were especially created to all be very simple modules. These modules will provide accomodation for the students and nurses.
Maternal mortality remains unacceptably high in Malawi, Africa.
Many women, especially those in rural areas, still live too far from health facilities to be able to receive care in time.
Approximately 26% of women in rural communities give birth at home, while 31% give birth without the assistance of a skilled health worker, and 59% do not receive post-natal care within the recommended two days of giving birth. This combined with high fertility rates of 4.8 and 3.0 on average for rural and urban women respectively and rising teenage pregnancies means a lot of women still face the risk of death or disability throughout their reproductive years.
The pace of scaling up community-based maternal and newborn care is slow and crippled with human resources shortages. This clinic seeks to ensure women have access to maternity services, reducing the risk of complications during birth or death of the mother or baby. The new facility includes a nurse and midwife learning centre with accommodation attached for staff and students.
