Kyabirwa Surgical Center

This project was named an Citation winner in the 70th Annual Progressive Architecture Awards, and was featured in the March 2023 issue of ARCHITECT.

“The basic program of this surgical center is so admirable.” —Juror Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA

The design for the Kyabirwa Surgical Center posits a bold strategy for social development in sub-Saharan Africa, providing much-needed health care in a human-centered, ecologically sensitive environment with an emphasis on regionally inspired elegance. Intended to provide comprehensive wellness services to more than half a million people in central Uganda, the scheme from New York–based GKG envisions an all-purpose facility providing a full range of surgery, treatment, and preventative medicine to the largely agricultural communities spread out along the northern shore of Lake Victoria.

Taking cues from the rustic site and the traditional building methods of the area’s people, GKG fashions rough-and-ready materials—molded clay tile for the exterior walls, warped aluminum siding for the roof, a foundation mat of plain concrete—into a harmonious composition of three separate pavilions, all assembled under a single shade-giving canopy with circulatory passages in and around each volume. The sense of spatial flow and the openness to the verdant countryside all around give the project a wholesome organicism that seems a perfect complement to its vital life-saving mission.

PROJECT CREDITS
Project: Kyabirwa Surgical Center Ward, Kyabirwa, Uganda
Client/Owner: Mount Sinai Organization
Architects: GKG, New York. George George AIA (principal); Max Moses (junior principal); Nicole Rivera, AIA Intl., Christian Pena (project designers)
Interior Designer: GKG
Mechanical Engineer: Selemani Engineers
Structural Engineer: Selemani Engineers
Electrical Engineer: Selemani Engineers
Civil Engineer: Selemani Engineers
Construction Manager: Selemani Engineers
General Contractor: Selemani Engineers
Landscape Architect: GKG
Lighting Designer: GKG
Size: 11,830 square feet
Cost: $ 1,100,000

MATERIALS AND SOURCES
Ceilings: Acoustical ceiling tiles
Countertops: Stainless Steel
Exterior Wall Systems: custom-made clay tiles
Fabrics and Finishes: Uganda Tile
Flooring: Terrazzo
Furniture: Client Provided
Glass: Glass-Impala glass (Kenya)
HVAC: HVAC-LG Appliances —Appliance World
Masonry and Stone: Locally sourced
Metal: Galvanized iron sheet
Photovoltaics or other Renewables: New building relies on existing solar infrastructure.
Plumbing and Water System: New building relies on existing water infrastructure.
Roofing: Sheet Metal Panel
Site and Landscape Products: Native plants
Structural System: Reinforced Concrete, Concrete Block
Wallcoverings: Cement Plaster
Walls: CMU blocks with cement plaster, painted
Windows and Doors: Steel windows and doors, are locally manufactured.