HAITI PROJECTS: LIBRARY & MAKERS SPACE
Client: Build Health International, Kellogg Foundation, Haiti Projects

”Haiti Projects, founded in 1994, is a non-profit organization in Fond-des-Blancs with a mission to empower rural Haitian women toward self-sufficiency. They provide access to jobs at fair-trade wages, primarily through a cooperative garment workshop where women learn to embroider, knit, and sew. As a result of expanding community involvement, Haiti Projects quickly outgrew the space needed to provide library services, a family planning clinic, literacy education, women’s artisans, and community center.

With a grant from the W.K. Kellogg foundation, Haiti Projects partnered with Build Health International to design and build a library and community center on a donated piece of land in the center of town. The library features a passive cooling system designed to allow heat to rise and escape through angled roof trusses and numerous windows and breezeways encourage airflow throughout the building. The first floor features room for a café, makerspace, and large meeting room. The second story holds the library, workshop, and a veranda overlooking Fond-des-Blancs.

The Haiti Projects library has quickly become a successful community center, hosting town meetings, film nights, child care, and adult literacy classes. The center continues to serve the residents of Fonds-des-Blancs and find new ways to help them enjoy their new community fixture.”

-Build Health International

HÔPITAL UNIVERSITAIRE MIREBALAIS
Client: Build Health International, Partners in Health, Adaptiv Architecture

“Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais (HUM) was the first project undertaken by BHI's co-founders, and it laid the foundation for the organization that would become Build Health International. As the largest and most advanced public sector hospital in Haiti, HUM has elevated the standard of care and redefined the possible in rural, resource-limited settings. Construction of HUM was completed within within 27 months - a fraction of the time that projects of a similar scale typically take in Haiti. Despite challenges from the cholera epidemic, flooding, and election-related civil unrest, HUM opened in March 2013 to provide care to over 185,000 residents in Haiti’s Central Plateau and even more who come from across the country seeking care.As the largest and most advanced public-sector hospital in Haiti, Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais (HUM) was designed to elevate the standard of care, as well as redefine what is possible in resource-limited, rural settings.

A huge team of partners and experts came together to make this groundbreaking design possible. The design team worked closely with clinicians familiar with the local context to determine which design features and biotechnology promote high-quality care (in this particular setting). The process of designing, constructing, and equipping HUM made it clear to our team that specific expertise in infrastructure development is necessary to effectively expand healthcare access. BHI was founded to apply what we learned in the process of building HUM to future projects, refine our techniques, and to support HUM’s long-term operations. Since HUM’s opening, BHI continued to support the hospital, providing training and emergency support to the Haitian team, as well as designing and building approximately 10 additional departments and facilities, including the reference laboratory, medical resident dorms, oncology center and a new emergency department.”

-Build Health International

REFERENCE LABORATORY at HUM
Client: Build Health International, Partners in Health, Shepley Bulfinch

“The National Clinical Reference Laboratory in Mirebalais is Haiti’s first public-sector pathology laboratory and contains the Caribbean's first permanent Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) lab for highly infectious diseases. BHI designed and built the lab for Partners In Health as a clinically significant addition to the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais campus.

For this project, BHI employed the many lessons learned from constructing HUM while collaborating with experts from Harvard University, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the architecture firm Shepley Bullfinch. Throughout the process BHI worked to ensure a sustainable and energy efficient laboratory. The design and construction allows for local staff to to maintain the facility, and the lab was allows for continued growth, diagnostic advances, and expertise.

The reference laboratory currently provides surgeons with the ability to diagnose and treat surgical pathology, enabling rapid, highly accurate diagnoses to inform life-saving treatment plans for thousands of patients each year. Diagnosis of infectious diseases—including HIV, drug-resistant tuberculosis, hepatitis, meningitis, cholera, Zika, and chikungunya—will be possible in this new facility, as well as the monitoring of treatment for HIV-positive patients on antiretroviral therapy. The laboratory also enables Haitian laboratory technicians to receive advanced training in their field, serves as a national training facility, and facilitates more advanced research to be conducted in Haiti.”

-Build Health International

ST BONIFICE CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND EMERGENCY CARE
Client: Build Health International, Health Equity International, Adaptiv Architecture

“The flooding of international aid into Haiti post the 2010 earthquake brought with it the first Cholera epidemic the country had seen in over 100 years. After hurricane Matthew hit Haiti in 2016, there was an insurgence of Cholera across Haiti. St Boniface Hospital (SBH) was treating cholera and tuberculosis patients in tents that they called the infectious disease area, as a way to keep patients with infectious disease separated from the rest of the campus. At the time, the hospital had only one point of entry for critically ill patients: the Emergency Department. The SBH team understood the challenges this patient flow posed for other patients and staff at the hospital. The idea was born to build a new facility at the entry of the campus noted to be the Infectious Disease and Cholera Unit.

With funding from USAID, SBH hired Build Health International to design and build their new facility. Shortly after Hurricane Matthew the Haitian Ministry of Health and International Aid groups launched a successful immunization campaign. St. Boniface’s community health workers were so successful in the hospital’s catchment area that cholera was all but eradicated. At this time, the Hospital reassessed their priorities and asked to turn the former cholera unit into a new Emergency Department. The completed facility consists of two distinct units with separate entries and waiting areas. The 22-bed Emergency Department increases patient capacity and streamlines patient visits with separate inpatient and fast-track patient areas. The roof slopes help keep the interior space cool during the hottest parts of the day and the building utilizes passive design strategies for increased airflow. The 18 bed, Infectious Disease facility creates a safe place for isolating patients. The ward has six private isolation rooms, and men’s and women’s tuberculosis wards. Mechanical exhaust fans ensure that an adequate number of air changes are provided to prevent the spread of disease.”

-Adaptiv