November 28, 2011

Innovative Design

Farrow Partnership Architects designs health centres for South Africa

Farrow Partnership wins international design competition

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

A design team led by Toronto’s Farrow Partnership Architects has won an international competition to design a new type of health centre in South Africa that could be adapted for use in a variety of settings throughout the country’s nine provinces.

The “health-promoting lifestyle centres” are intended to advance strategic goals of South Africa’s national health insurance system by introducing a new “salutogenic” model, one that promotes healthy living.

The community facilities would house a wide variety of health, education, retail, library and theatre spaces. The prototype developed by the Farrow team could be adjusted for city, rural and township conditions.

FARROW PARTNERSHIP ARCHITECTS

A stylized flower tops a central hub in a prototype design for health centres in South Africa.

The units would be approximately 18,000 square feet.

“The concept of this building is entirely new,” says senior partner Tye Farrow. “While our firm in the past has designed a number of the components that make up the centre, combining them in one building like this is entirely new.”

The international design competition was funded by the South African Ministry of Health.

The Farrow team’s winning design was assessed on the basis of 40 factors.

In contrast to long-established acute-care centres of excellence in treating disease, the design is conceived as an innovative “centre of influence” for promoting healthy living.

“One of our goals was to demonstrate what can be done in a tangible way to move beyond minor improvements in achieving a healthier population,” Farrow said.

His firm’s Canadian credits include the Credit Valley Hospital’s cancer care and ambulatory care facility in Mississauga, the first fully integrated complex in Ontario that combines ambulatory clinics and cancer treatments. The facility was designed to promote “humanistic” healing practices.

At the heart of the design for the South African centres is the form of the Protea, the country’s national flower, which serves as a metaphor for hope, healing and renewal.

The central flower area, a Teflon-coated fiberglass fabric, sits on a steel frame. Leaves are constructed of concrete block/brick walls and steel truss joist walls. The central ‘flower’ facilitates passive air circulation.

The prototype incorporates natural ventilation and daylighting.

The single-storey buildings are designed for ease of construction.

Farrow said the South African government hopes to have a number of prototype centres constructed by 2014. Contractors are expected to be prequalified to bid the projects.

The Farrow Partnership team includes Dr. Ray Pentecost, director of healthcare architecture at Clark Nexsen, a Virginia-based firm of architects and engineers and Dr. Innocent Okpanum, director of heathcare at the firm of Ngonyama Okpanum & Associates in Cape Town, South Africa.

“We have been promoting the ideas that make up the concept within this building over a number of years,“ said Farrow who has been recognized by the Stockholm-based World Congress on Design and Health as a global leader who is making a significant contribution to health and humanity through he medium of architecture and design.

“This competition was a chance for the firm to express the ideas in one building. We believe there is much that decision-makers around the world can learn from the implementation of this concept.

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