Size

Build: 13,925 sq. ft. / 1,294 sq. m.

Year

2014

Status

Completed

Client

Rwanda Ministry of Health, Partners In Health

Portrait of Alan Ricks, AIA, Int FRIBA
Alan Ricks, AIA, Int FRIBA
Founding Principal & Chief Design Officer
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.

Project Team

Michael Murphy, Alan Ricks, Garret Gantner, Amelie Ntigulirwa, Commode Dushimana

Collaborators

Landscape Design: MASS Design Group
Structural Engineer: Edys Consultants
MEP Engineer: Edys Consultants
Quantity Surveyor: Edys Consultants

The Rwinkwavu Hospital was closed after the 1994 genocide, reopening in the early 2000s as a health center and later with Partners In Health as the referral hospital for the Kayonza district. In response to the region’s high mortality rate of children under five, UNICEF prepared a concept brief for a new operating suite and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Photo of Iwan Baan, Nurse checking on patients in main recovery room

© Iwan Baan

In response to the brief, MASS identified a site near a recently completed maternity ward. The new building plan follows the flow of expectant mothers from the adjacent pre-maternity ward, through operating rooms designated for Cesarean deliveries, and across a sheltered exterior corridor to the postpartum ward and NICU.

Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Photo by Iwan Baan, Patients waiting in outdoor benches

© Iwan Baan

A rhythmic array of tall windows offers views to the valley in the distance and a band of clerestory windows brings light into service areas and private spaces.

Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Photo by Iwan Baan, Exterior view of NICU from roadway

© Iwan Baan

Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Patients in the main recovery room
Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Photo by Iwan Baan, An exterior hallway

© Iwan Baan

Conceived of as a shared living room, the postpartum ward opens up and connecting to the landscape on one end, and access to the nursing station and NICU on the other end.

Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Photo by Iwan Baan, Patient in open layout recovery room

© Iwan Baan

A low-pitched butterfly roof allows for a future rainwater harvesting system to be easily installed and preserves views from the buildings above to the valley.

Rwinkwavu Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Photo by Iwan Baan, Patient and doctor in the recovery room

© Iwan Baan

Outdoor communal areas, established for families and patient attendants, surround the building; these carefully landscaped spaces allow visitors to stay close at hand without overwhelming the NICU and operating rooms’ medical and patient areas, a common problem in medical facilities around the country.

In addition to constructing the NICU, MASS worked with Partners In Health to create a master plan for the Rwinkwavu Hospital, which also serves as the organization’s headquarters in Rwanda. MASS mapped and assessed facilities and needs on the existing campus, projecting hospital capacity growth and delivering data-based design solutions.