MASS Design Group’s GHESKIO Cholera Treatment Center was recently featured in WIRED for it’s state-of-the-art design in a country with “the most vicious cholera epidemic in modern history.” Nearing completion, the one-of-a-kind health center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, plays host to a combination of sustainable features–as in environmental, health, and maintenance. Designed to serve 60,000 Haitians, the building will employ a high-performing, impermeable terrazzo floor; embedded catchment basins to quickly collect waste spillage; a passive waste treatment center in the building’s basement; and plenty of cross ventilation due to a permeable facade, central courtyard, and Big Ass fans.
The earthquake that rocked Haiti in 2010 triggered the most vicious cholera epidemic in modern history. To date, the outbreak has claimed over 8,000 lives, leaving hundreds of thousands of others needing treatment. And yet, last year, when Boston-based nonprofit MASS Design Group was tapped by Haitian nonprofit GHESKIO to build a cholera treatment center in Port Au Prince, there wasn’t a single permanent facility for cholera anywhere in the country.
Click here to read “A Breakthrough Hospital Designed to Squash Cholera Epidemics,” online at WIRED.com.
