Peak practice: united in one mission.
Humanitarian engineering work overseas hammers home the passive design approach – doing as much as possible with as little impact as possible.
POSSIBILITIES
Driven by Article 25 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights – stating everyone’s right to adequate, dignified shelter – architectural charity Article 25’s vision is a world where all communities have access to better housing, safe school buildings and effective medical clinics. With the skills and knowledge to make this a reality, Hoare Lea has been working with Article 25 for years, providing engineering and financial support for schools and childcare centres in Tanzania and hospitals in Myanmar and Nepal.
Kate Glensman shares her experience at The United Mission Hospital in Tansen, in the Palpa region, west of Kathmandu...
Senior Associate, Hoare Lea
Kate Glensman:
“The hospital employed Article 25 to assess its options in expanding and upgrading its incredible site – which has a great reputation in the community, but some of its buildings are over 50 years old and no longer fit for purpose. They wanted to make sure the site could withstand future earthquake risks and increased patient numbers while improving the level of care. Article 25 in action: a factfinding mission “The hospital is constrained and, as with pretty much everything in Nepal, sits over a very sloping site. It has ‘evolved’, with extensions built when funding was available. There’s little space left now; to achieve their goals, a phased approach is needed, which sees some buildings demolished before new facilities can be built in their place. The hospital realised that employing an architect would pay dividends, and turned to Article 25. On our factfinding mission, we helped carry out a survey of the United Mission site. We identified the kinds of systems that the hospital uses now, any problems reported by staff, and opportunities for improvements.
“Article 25 had been into the London office to talk about their work, but in 2016 a call went out from Ashley Bateson for engineers to get more directly involved for a three-month period, delving into projects and answering their questions. It sounded like a great opportunity to do something completely different. Then, this year, I took over the coordination of our Article 25 support.
“It’s important for engineers to get involved – it’s a great way to make a difference in parts of the world that we’d never normally have access and exposure to, supporting people that can really benefit from our input. It’s a personal challenge that can improve you as an engineer. You have to think about different environmental concerns, understand the kinds of technology and equipment that are available and affordable, ensure that you design something that local people can build and maintain. You can’t rely on a lot of the infrastructure we are used to here. It really hammers home the passive design approach – doing as much as possible with as little impact as possible becomes all the more important.
“I’m continuing to support hospital staff as they monitor their power usage to give them an idea of how close they are to capacity, and inform design. If the hospital is happy with Article 25’s proposals, the project will move into early stage design.”
LET'S TALK