Magyizin, Myanmar
Referencing the local traditional architecture, German architectural practice A+R Architekten designs the new Burma Hospital building, transforming traditional construction methods into a contemporary design vocabulary, ensuring that the people in the remote village in the Bay of Bengal have faster and better access to medical care.
The Burma Hospital has recently been awarded a 2023 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
With its 20 beds, a fully equipped operating theatre, a delivery room, and a laboratory, the Project Burma Hospital serves around 20 communities and 20,000 people as a central medical facility.
On the initiative of Projekt Burma e.V., a large part of the hospital equipment was shipped in containers from Germany where it had been donated by local institutions and doctors.
A single-story atrium house was developed to serve as the main building.
Its sheltered inner courtyard is the heart of the building; it is both a lounge area and a communal space.
Grouped around it are the patient rooms, the treatment and staff rooms, and the dispensary.
To minimize the transmission of diseases, the waiting area is located outdoors.
The linear side wing with its distinctive mono-pitch roof is accessed via a pergola.
It houses an isolation ward with additional rooms for infectious patients, kitchens — for self-catering, which is common in Myanmar — along with storage rooms, washrooms, and sanitary facilities.
Inspired by the country’s typical “brick nogging structure,” the new building was erected in a skeleton construction of reinforced concrete with brick infill.
Architecturally striking features are the movable shading and rain protection elements made of wooden slats and the roof construction of the atrium house with its all-around gable top.
In combination, both also ensure constant ventilation — one of the major issues when building in a tropical climate.
The underside of the ceiling structure made of timber trusses was largely covered with weaved bamboo mats. In this way, air circulates through the open windows behind the shading folding shutters, upwards through the bamboo lattice, and back out again via ventilation louvers in the ridge of the gable top.
As there are no construction companies in the area, most of the building was erected by villagers under the guidance of a carpenter.
Project: Burma Hospital
Architects: a+r Architekten
General Contractor: Projekt Burma e. V.
Client: Projekt Burma e. V.
Photographers: Oliver Gerhartz
