On Doctor's orders: take me global! Global Clinic

Step inside treatment at the Wellcome Collection 

When architecture is on the move to save lives: in partnership with the recent 'Living with Buildings' exhibition, Global Clinic sets an aesthetic anesthetic to suggest alternatives and opportunities for the next generation of on-the-field emergency health care. One that gets the nod of the doctors, and brings architects into the challenge of humanitarian aid. 

Cutting out a structure -
the abstract forms and its practical applications

Spanning a full room of the upper exhibition hall at London's Wellcome Collection, a full scale flat pack emergency clinic has been designed, deployed and on display for inspection. Here, architecture, the pressures of emergency health care, potentially volatile social and economic geographies, and the power of technology, all emerge into one slick shelter in and ply and plastic.

The venerable London based Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners (RSH+P) won a commission to re-envision on-the-field emergency health treatment, and to develop a structure fit for a medical clinic that could be deployed into emergency areas quickly, and securely. Made of a laser cut plywood structure and complete with internal and external zones for medical treatment, the design ensures spatial and programmatic flexibility. The fully insulated walls and durable (and exceedingly light and transportable) stretch tensile plastic sheeting provide protection to heat and rain - critically building in a structural integrity that has the capacity to adapt and meet unknown climatic conditions. It makes for a well thought out, but stylistically heavy 'design architect' solution.

[...at the confluence of design, function, aesthetic,

and emergency care...]

RSH+P have done a good job at provoking how architecture can be easily fabricated, transported, and simply - but effectively - achieve both spatial and functional (use) adaptability. Drawing in wider debates into emergency care, critical considerations and acknowledgement of the social challenges arising form community and cultural requirements have further enriched the design brief for this shelter. The architects claim that the data file used to cut the ply cut pieces that build the final structure  gives a "digital transportability" that means it can be fabricated in the country of destination -  sending over a data file that will allow community input into its design, in an attempt to incorporate social and cultural considerations into the final physical shape of the structure. This suggests that such a consultation and a broader social consideration of the debates around implanting external aid into countries, has given additional depth to the design solution by RSH+P. However, what does remain to be interrogated are the risks that every country or geographic area will have the required technology and  equipment to fabricate these clinics locally, and thereby allow such local cultural customisation.

Overall, Global Clinic does provoke, and it does provides a tangible link between built form and health care to get one thinking on new forms of health care in humanitarian aid, and how architecture can be a part of this solution. Moreover, it also has a bright acid green deck (typical of RSH+P's colourful architectural signature), and wall-to-wall of ply computer aided cut outs - so its broadly engaging and fun to explore. Perhaps that's enough to get the conversation and design engagement into this area of development going. What's more, once this exhibition closes Doctors of the World will deploy this structure to where it's most needed. Catch it before it leaves!

This is it - at the confluence of design, function, aesthetic, and emergency care

Global Clinic is on display at the Wellcome Collection until 24th April 2019.

Link to exhibition: Global Clinic

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