Architecture students’ designs transform
rural African medical clinic into hospital

Texas A&M architecture students will unveil design concepts for transforming a rural African medical clinic into a hospital at a 9 a.m., Oct. 1 public gathering in the College of Architecture’s Wright Gallery, located on the second floor of building A of the Langford Architecture Center.

Father Paul Fagan, a Roman Catholic priest, has been operating the clinic in Songambele, Tanzania since 1992, when he founded it in a rented room; he began working in Tanzania following his ordination in 1960.

Funded by Roads to Life Tanzania, a charitable organization, the Songambele facility includes a large dispensary, laboratory, maternity ward and a 30-bed inpatient ward. Clinic patients’ top health concerns, Fagan said, are HIV/AIDS, lower respiratory infections, malaria, diarrheal diseases and prenatal screenings.

Fagan came to College Station Sept. 1 to discuss the clinic’s expansion needs with students in the architecture-for-health studio co-directed by George Mann, the Skaggs-Sprague Endowed Chair in Health Facilities Design at Texas A&M, and Joseph J.McGraw, an architecture professor emeritus. Fagan was joined in his visit by Wally Orzechowski, executive director of the Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Center.

Fagan, Orzechowski and Father Herb Gappa, who works with Fagan in Tanzania, are scheduled to attend the design review.

An upgraded facility, Fagan said, has the potential to save thousands of lives by facilitating minor surgical procedures and more.

“Children will be able to get transfusions in Songambele, instead of being transported by ambulance, bicycle or small bus to the Somanda District Hospital in Bariadi,” he said. “Many don’t survive the trip.”

The students’ design solutions call for a flexible site plan and upgrading the facility in two phases, said Joseph J.McGraw, an architecture professor emeritus who assisted Mann with the studio’s direction. The initial effort would retrofit the clinic’s existing buildings, including the lab, dispensary and staff housing.

The second phase would create 60 additional beds and facilities for dentistry, opthalmology, x-rays, surgery, isolation and maternity, outpatient and education services. An administration building and mortuary are also in the second phase designs.

"The next step," said Fagan, "is to utilize the planning and architectural design visions of these student projects, to energize and embark on a fund raising effort to finance the construction and operation of the hospital."

To learn more about Fagan’s work and the Roads to Life charity, visit http://roadstolifetanzania.org/.

 

- Posted: Sept. 24, 2010 -

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Contact:   Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.