The Memphis Mission Hospital is the first ground-up charity mission hospital in the Philippines. It is located 3 kilometers from the center of Victorias City in Negros Occidental and pays homage to the rich tropical landscape of the region.
The hospital is divided into 4 inter-connected architectural volumes that in their distinctly semi-open arrangement offer sweeping vistas of a different garden from every window. The pin-wheel layout of the hospital creates a smooth circulation loop with multiple points of entry so that patients, doctors and staff can move efficiently within their intended zones.
Upon arrival to the hospital, a large curved roof welcomes visitors to an open-air plaza with a large banyan tree at its center that serves as a kind of new community center for Victorias City.
Under this shimmering light blue metallic roof one finds a library, a health-focused restaurant, consultation rooms and a registration area for patients. Large monumental steps lead to the operating rooms contained in a simple single-pitch structure clad in natural stone and bounded by a vegetable garden to the north.
The in-patient rooms extend outwards from the operating rooms with a gentle curving volume clad in a soft iridescent metal mesh that reduces heat and facilitates natural ventilation thereby promoting passive cooling.
The doctor & nurse’s private dormitory is raised on a stone plinth to ensure privacy and enveloped in an aluminum rain screen that resembles the bamboo curtains of vernacular Filipino homes.
Each bedroom faces a flower garden of swirling paths while morning light cascades down from a series of clearstory windows that sweep upwards to the sky. At the eastern edge of the Memphis Mission Hospital are two extraordinary public spaces: the artist studio and chapel.
The chapel is a slender white cylindrical volume that spirals open at the base leading to a restful meditation space crowned with a gentle glowing cross above. The artist studio is a workshop, gallery and apartment for a visiting resident-artist.
The Memphis Mission Hospital will host artist-residencies with the intention of connecting healing with the experience of making art. The Memphis Mission Hospital embodies the philosophy of empathy through action.
Our design is an architectural declaration of how buildings and landscapes can come together to inspire transformations that are larger than themselves. Our hope is that this architectural project becomes a testament of the worth in actively engaging with our world by supporting communities in need. Source by CAZA.
- Location: Victorias City, Philippines
- Architect: CAZA
- Project Team: Carlos Arnaiz, Jund Deng, Kate Sarmiento, Luis Carlos Martinez, Haoran Wang, Wenna Dai
- Status: Design Development
- Year: 2018
- Images: Courtesy of CAZA
