The Mount Sinai Kyabirwa Surgical Facility in Uganda by Kliment Halsband Architects is a self-sustaining facility topped with solar panels.
Local labourers built the health facility using materials sourced from the area, including red bricks that form the perforated screen walls that allow for natural ventilation.
Red clay was dug up from sites near the building and fired to create bricks and cladding for the medical facility, a decision that also helped support the local economy.
Photo by Bob Ditty
"Surgical treatments are essential to building healthy communities worldwide," said Kliment Halsband Architects, which was founded in 1972 in New York.
"This model is built around developing an independent, self-sustaining facility capable of providing surgical treatments in resource-poor areas."
Kliment Halsband Architects took inspiration from the banana plants that grow in the area for the shape of the building, which is shaded by a canopy of solar panels.
"We thought of solar panels as leaves of banana plants gathering sun and providing shade," said the studio. The solar array shelters and powers the simple modular brick facility beneath."

The solar panels stand on a steel framework on the concrete roof, which is supported by another steel frame.
A hybrid battery storage system and onsite generator helps supplement the intermittent power available through the electricity grid. If the mains power fails, Mount Sinai Kyabirwa Surgical Facil...