Can a hospital be more than a center for treatment? Can it initiate a sense of healing in the individual as well as the community?
The hospital in its early form was a facility meant to house the sick in ancient Egyptian temples. Prayers, sacrifices and dream interpretations were used in the healing process as well as quintessential medical procedures such as opium for pain and stitching of wounds. Monasteries were later established to accommodate travelers, the indigent and the sick.
Hospitals were constructed next to Religious institutions but also utilized house calls for the wealthy class. Monasteries were also organized in cloisters which were places of retreats from the mundane.
The idea of hospitals today is to diagnose, treat and heal patients which has proven to be effective with most diseases being prevented and eradicated entirely from our day to day lives. However, these conditions aren't as similar in Malawi.
The origin of the word hospital is derived from the Latin word "hospitalia" meaning a place of refuge for guests and strangers. The need for effectively functioning hospital in Malawi is apparent, but the need to create a hospital that heals and creates a sense of community and tranquility for both the guest and wondering traveler is paramount. / Master of Architecture / Explorations of the thesis included delving into what it means to live in a communal village to designing a healing hospital from the outside inward to inform the design to it's fruition. Research entailed looking at perspectives of rural living in Malawi and reflecting those elements in the built environment to create a hospital with gardens of healing and roofs that reflect rural architecture and natural materials.
Research began with exploring the cultural influences of community and expressing it through graphic representation and data analysis which informed the location of the site in Blantyre, Malawi. The idea of creating a hospital that can heal through gardens of community or "Khonde" that are synonymous with the people of Malawi.
The concept of the hospital is based on the organization of a rural village composed of a center point at the driveway entrance which unfurls out to allow for possible future expansion of the campus. The curvature of the maternity breaks the linear organization to help guide the gardens and circulation of pedestrian paths and patients to and from the hospital departments whilst keeping a certain amount of public access and private ownership.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/79697 |
| Date | 17 October 2017 |
| Creators | Ngwira, Lumbani |
| Contributors | Architecture, Emmons, Paul F., Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C., Feuerstein, Marcia F. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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