The Government of Ghana currently seeks to replace the existing facilities of the Ghana Ridge Hospital with a new modern hospital that reflects the current aspirations of the fast developing African Country. The Ministry of Health identified this hospital as the main central healthcare facility in the city of Accra and will expand it facilities into a comprehensive masterplan that will increase the program to 600 beds and more than 12 surgical theaters totaling 465,560 SF. In Phase 1, the new 307,000 SF facility will contain approximately 400 beds and enhanced medical specialties including Public health, A&E unit and imaging, Child, OB/Gyn, Dental, Maternity, daycare day surgery, NICU, HDU, Administration, Laboratory, ICU’s and Respiratory Therapy. The development programmed in two phases allow for the continuation of operations of the existing hospital. The new hospital expansion will deliver modern healthcare facilities to women and children in the city and become the largest hospital in the country to date.
The project engages with the living qualities of the site and its place by fine-tuning the way it responds to the requirements and expectations of patients and their families, medical, administrative and support staff. Breezeways, public corridors, and waiting areas, passively cooled by natural ventilation are formally articulated as a series of layers reinterpreting the vernacular response to the place, where transitional spaces for gathering have a cultural significance. The building envelope at a larger scale provides solar shading with large concrete overhangs and canopies and at a finer scale, brise soleils for the glazing. The hospital is composed of five levels where a plinth is created by the first three floors, then topped by four 2-level inpatients towers, taking advantage of the natural site slope. The front boldly faces the major thoroughfare on the south which runs in a northwest to southeast direction and becomes a datum which lends organization for the building’s circulation and function at the site scale. Arrival activities flank the building on the northeast and southwest. Public transportation delivers patients through a public area culminating in naturally ventilated waiting area. Other arrivals can occur through an internal site-located drop off area.
The program layout is arranged to keep an efficient and simple building operation, where the building is designed as a robust system of components that perform with minimal maintenance. Integral to this living system are sustainable strategies that include passive cooling, rainwater harvesting, condensate water reuse, light color exterior finishes with specified local sourced products, controlled daylight harvesting and solar water heating.
