White Arkitekter has created a concept for a new mother and baby health unit at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Swedish architecture studio has designed the maternity unit as an extension to the Panzi Hospital, which was founded in 1999 by Denis Mukwege ? recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize ? to help improve the wellbeing of mothers and their children in the country.

Panzi Hospital deals with 3,500 births a year and is currently overcapacity with insufficient sanitation and a shortage of beds meaning women have to share rooms with other mothers and their babies, which can be distressing.
White Arkitekter worked with Mukwege and Marie Berg, a professor specialising in reproductive and perinatal health at Gothenburg University, to design the new mother and baby unit that will replace the current overcrowded and inadequate facilities.
The design team has proposed dividing the hospital facilities into two parts. A single one-storey intensive care block that would handle the labour ward and the neonatal unit, with seven two-storey modular pavilions to house patients who are post-birth, along with the outpatient department.

The new mother and baby unit was designed according to the principals of "healing architecture", where a positive environment promotes patient recovery.

Layouts are designed to be easy to navigate, with lots of natural daylight and views of nature. Privacy for patients is also central to the design.
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