Water is the hot topic among the project entries for the Holcim Awards in region Latin America. Whether for wastewater, drinking water, or tidal water, many of the prize winners have innovative and often surprising proposals for ways to master the use of this precious resource in Latin America.

This project is a prototype for temporary rural surgical hospitals. Because of the sensitivity of the equipment and supplies, it proposes a hybrid approach of prefabrication and local construction. Recycled shipping containers are outfitted as the core spaces of the hospital – operating room, pharmacy, kitchen, and laundry – and delivered in situ. Local builders erect wooden piles and place the containers in an elevated courtyard arrangement. Local carpentry is then also used to cover the containers with a tessellated timber roof for shading and ventilation. As the medical center expands, the complex can grow with it. Clinic rooms and patient rooms extend out from the surgical core in a pinwheel arrangement. When the surgical core is relocated, these wings remain as a lasting resource for local public health.

Seeding technique: Innovation, transferability and social inclusion

The aim of the project is to insert a healing seed that evolves into a complex clinical structure, providing an affordable and intelligent building method. The procedure begets open source know-how for the community. It provides a collaborative technique from recycled prefabricated elements, that are operational for site workshop; the logistics are so simple that the basic unit may be set up and dismantled in very little time allowing the procedure to be repeated somewhere else. Therefore, local agents become system experts ensuring long term maintenance. It operates with social and gender equity as it employs local crafts. Roof and enclosure are tailored with local materials and expertise. Environmental education involves passive energy, earthquake prevention and waste management.