Tuberculosis remains a pandemic disease today, afflicting people in every country on Earth. An outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis hit Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Patients require treatment for up to 24 months, and they remain infectious during the first few months of treatment.

MASS Design Group designed the GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital in Port-au-Prince to provide patients with an effective, dignified place to stay during treatment. Flowers and trees offer color, shade, and privacy. Medical consultations take place in open air spaces where transmission risk is lower. Passive ventilation reduces indoor transmission while lessening energy costs.

Content from the exhibition Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics, curated by MASS Design Group and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

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GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital, Port-au-Prince, Ouest Department, Haiti, 2015
Architectural and Landscape Design: MASS Design Group (Boston, Massachusetts, USA, founded 2008); Partner: Les Centres GHESKIO; Construction Manager: Raphael Izmery from GBS Group; Structural Engineer: CBI Consulting; Mechanical/Electrical Engineer: Berelec; Civil Engineer: Fall Creek Engineering, Inc.; Contractor: Chantiers d’Haiti

Aerial view of GHESKIO hospital, the building is shaped like a capital letter G that has slanted, ridged white roofs with a central paved courtyard split by triangular and oblong planters

Photograph: © Iwan Baan

Interior courtyard of GHESKIO hospital, a two-story, angular white building with a luminescent green sloping roof that has large rectangular windows and a wrap-around balcony. The cobbled courtyard has climbing green foliage in triangular stone planters.

Photograph: © Iwan Baan

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GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital, Ventilation Diagram

Schematic diagram showing devices employed in GHESKIO hospital to improve passive ventilation and reduce infection, including open air trusses, isolation rooms, metal louvers, inoperable vents, exhaust fans and horizontal fins

MASS Design Group (Boston, Massachusetts, USA, founded 2008)

Featured Image: Photograph: © Iwan Baan

One thought on “GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital

My father suffered from TB from 1960 to 1969. He was quarantined in the Minneapolis VA hospital, a hospital ward designed for isolation, confinement, and for our Midwestern climate. As a kid, I could not go into the ward. We were greeted and fitted with masks in a reception area and we could then meet in another controlled area, or go anywhere outside. I always wondered why the patients could not just live outside in the fresh air instead of the tight hallways and isolated rooms?

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