Size

Site: 3.025 hectares / 7.5 acres
Build: 1,300 sq. m. / 13,933 sq. ft.

Year

In Progress

Status

In Progress

Client

African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Redeemer's University

Partners

World Bank, Broad Institute

Alan Ricks, AIA, Int FRIBA

Alan Ricks, AIA, Int FRIBA

Founding Principal & Chief Design Officer

Alan is a Founding Principal and the Chief Design Officer of MASS Design Group. He leads strategy and design of the 100-person firm, which has projects in over a dozen countries that range from design to research to policy—a portfolio that continues to expand the role of design in advancing a more just world.

In 2017 Alan and MASS were awarded the National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. First launched at the White House in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the annual Awards program celebrates design as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seeks to increase national awareness of the impact of design through education initiatives.

In 2018 he and MASS received the Arts and Letters Award for Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Each year the Academy honors over 70 composers, artists, architects, and writers with awards and prizes. Recipients must be nominated by an Academy member and this year the jury included Annabelle Seldorf, James Polshek, Tod Williams, Billie Tsien, Steven Holl, Kenneth Frampton, and Thom Mayne.

Alan is a member of The Forum of Young Global Leaders with the World Economic Forum, a community of over 800 men and women selected under the age of 40, who operate as a force for good to overcome barriers that elsewhere stand in the way of progress. The community is made up of leaders from all walks of life, from every region of the world, and from every stakeholder group in society.

Currently, he is the William B. and Charlotte Shepherd Davenport Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture and has previously taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He regularly speaks, writes, and creates films focused on the role of architecture in catalyzing social change. Chris Anderson, chief curator of TED, described his TED talk as “a different language about what architecture can aspire to be.”

He has a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College and a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

David Saladik

David Saladik

Senior Principal

David Saladik is a Senior Principal overseeing MASS’s international health portfolio. Having joined MASS in 2008 during the design of the Butaro District Hospital, his work over the last decade has been aimed at leveraging the built environment to improve health outcomes as well as engage and empower communities. He has spearheaded MASS’s expansion into new geographies focused on long-term health systems strengthening, establishing new offices in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Monrovia, Liberia.

David currently co-leads MASS’s largest office in Kigali, Rwanda with more than 80 architects, landscape architects, and engineers. Notable recent projects for which he has served as Principal-in-Charge include the Samajik Health Science Institute & Research Centre, a 520-bed teaching hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh; Norrsken Kigali House, an incubator for social entrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda; and the development of health facility standards with the Ministry of Health of Lagos State.

He has taught design studios at Northeastern University and Roger Williams rethinking primary care health centers to maximize positive social impact and resiliency. In parallel to this research, he led the design of the Family Health Center in McKinney, Texas - MASS’s first built US healthcare project.

Design Team

Chris Scovel, Bethel Abate, Bryce Brown, Sierra Bainbridge, Taylor Sinclair

Collaborators

MEP: Build Health International
Civil: Paul Avery
Engineering: Kolade Ijalana
Rammed Earth Construction: Asaduru
Partner Architect: Oladipo Shorinala

The African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), led by Dr. Christian Happi and Dr. Pardis Sabeti, was one of the first organizations to respond to the 2014 appearance of Ebola in Lagos, Nigeria. Their work allowed for a rapid and effective response by the Ministry of Health, which prevented the spread of the disease in a city of over 20 million people.

African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases 00

In partnership with the Broad Institute and MASS Design Group, ACEGID is leading an effort to further equip the entire African continent to stop future epidemics even more quickly and effectively. Central to this initiative is the construction of a new genomics laboratory located in Ede, Nigeria. The new building will be the first genomics research lab of its kind in Nigeria, enabling African scientists to use cutting edge technology in a biosafety level 3 (BSL3) facility that can handle highly toxic pathogens. The new center will build capacity by training a critical mass of African scientists in genomics-based tools for the control and elimination of infectious diseases. By sharing these findings globally, ACEGID will become part of a bio-surveillance network monitoring some of the world’s greatest health threats and supporting clinical care.

To encourage connections between people and their environment, the center is designed to increase collaboration between scientists, students, and international partners through an integrated layout of labs, shared space, offices, and classrooms. This will allow all collaborators to share ideas more fluidly, rather than in the traditional silos of lab spaces. The building is also a showcase for the high tech potential of locally available materials such as stabilized rammed earth walls.

In March 2020, ACEGID contributed to mapping the first African SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence within Africa. ACEGID has been sharing information with the Nigerian public on how to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, and is continuing to provide local and national support.