Raul Pantaleo

THE PAEDIATRIC CENTRE OF EMERGENCY NGO IN PORT SUDAN

The new paediatric clinic of EMERGENCY Ngo started from the ethical intuition of an artist meeting a useful project.
The clinic is located on the outskirts of Port Sudan, a very important harbour for Sudan since it is the only sea-access in the whole state. In recent years the area had a huge population growth from thirty thousand inhabitants, at the turn of the millennium, to nearly five hundred thousand in 2007. An exponential and dramatic growth caused by the increase of the harbour, the abandonment of the countryside caused by increasing droughts, but also by the huge number of refugees from various conflicts that took place in the region which concentrated a great mass of poor people in the city.

This clinic is one of the few health outposts capable of providing free health care to children of this large region.
The Centre in Port Sudan is a very simple building that adopted the settling principles of Arab houses while minimising sun-exposed sides and opted for a hollow space conformation in perfect harmony with the traditional building systems.
The single storey building has a total covered area of 780 square meters with 14 inpatient beds, 4 intensive care beds, 3 outpatient clinics, pharmacy and diagnostic services. It is structured on a series of courtyards with very few external openings. A place where the hierarchy between full and empty is overturned in favour of the latter, which becomes the generating element of the whole building. The entrance to the clinic is dominated by a tree in the middle of the waiting area, a fragment of life and continuity with the outdoor garden. The internal hospital spaces feature strong control of direct radiation of the sun through limited exposed openings and through the shielding with natural fibre panels. In this way the spaces are isolated physically and ideally from the outside heat with a succession of cool and protected rooms lit by overhead light sources that serve as vents for latent heat deriving from the common areas, a way to rethink and revive the atmosphere and the types of traditional living.

The challenge to bring together health and environment is, in our opinion, one of the challenges for the new millennium, not only for Africa. Allowing a culture of environmental rights to grow could give a future to countries whose development has been often undermined and slowed down by the indiscriminate exploitation of energy and natural resources that generated divisive and destructive civil wars with devastating sanitary aspects that came as a consequence.

DATA:
Client: EMERGENCY Ngo
Preliminary, detailed, final design: TAMassociati (Massimo Lepore, Raul Pantaleo, Simone Sfriso
with Laura Candelpergher and Enrico Vianello)
Project Coordinator: Pietro Parrino.
Program Coordinator: Rossella Miccio, Pietro Parrino.
Mechanical/services engineering: Marco Paissan, Climosfera
Structural engineering: Francesco Steffinlongo, INGECO
Site engineering: Roberto Crestan
Construction company: Autocostruzione
Covered surface area: 780 sqm
Surface area: 5000 sqm
Time: June 2011- May 2012
Cost (construction and fitting): 1.200.000€
Photos: Raul Pantaleo, Massimo Grimaldi