Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

Butaro Ambulatory Cancer Center/ MASS Design Group

Architects: MASS Design Group
Location: Butaro, Rwanda
Interior Décor: MASS Design Group
Project Year: 2012
Photographer: MASS Design Group
Website: www.massdesigngroup.org

- 21 April 2015
- Edwin Seda
Hospitals , Communal Centres ,

From the Architects
With every structure, wall and building element within the ambulatory clinic by Mass Design, it seems to ask how can we design the best possible environment to receive cancer treatment?
The Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence (BCCE) is the first comprehensive cancer center in East Africa. Developed for Partners In Health, who are pioneering the movement towards non-communicable disease care in sub-Saharan Africa, and funded generously in part by the Jeff Gordon Foundation, the BACC adjoins the Butaro District Hospital and administers IV chemotherapy in an outpatient setting.

The clinic’s chemotherapy hall is designed to be a patient-centric space. Its infusion chairs arranged radially around central pods for ease of physician access. The arrangement allows each patient access to the exterior through an operable pivot door façade, bringing the beautiful landscape and vista of the Virunga mountain range directly into the infusion room.

A ventilation system completed with engineers at Big Ass Fans maximizes natural air flow and uses strategically located UVGI lights to neutralize harmful pathogens. Moreover the clinic incorporates all outdoor circulation and waiting areas, and is strategically separated from the sick, admitted patients at the nearby hospital, all in an effort to protect cancer patients with weakened immune systems. The state-of-the-art facility and much of the equipment were built with locally sourced materials, custom-assembled on site. Expanding upon the craft innovation and skills-training practices first deployed on the Butaro Hospital, the facility’s construction created jobs for over 550 people.

CLICK TO REVIEW LINKED STORY

African Wildlife Foundation Ilima School Mass Design Group
You give, they give, we all give. That is the mindset that Mass Design group entered the Ilima School project with, that a little care from the tiniest sources can ripple across the wider angle of the whole spectrum of humanity and cause a paradigm shift. And it is with the collaboration of AW...

CLICK TO REVIEW LINKED STORY

Umubano Primary School/ MASS Design
In 2007, UK charity A Partner In Education (APIE), as part of its mission to boost education in Africa, committed to building a new school campus in the Kigali neighbourhood of Kabeza to replace dilapidated existing facilities. MASS was brought on board to select the new site, design the new e...

- © Cancer-Center-MASS-03
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-06
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-01
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-08
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-07
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-Section
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-04
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-05
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-02
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-Ground-Floor-Plan
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-Site-Plan
- © Cancer-Center-MASS-Master Plan

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

If you want your own avatar and keep track of your discussions with the community, sign up to archiDATUM >>

SELECTED WORKS

- Aloe Ridge House/ Metropole Architects
- 12 Apr 2015
Under the leafy canopy of an immense Albizia Tree nestles Aloe Ridge House, a 300sqm contemporary home in the Eden Rock Estate on Kwa Zul...
- El Gouna Hotel Resort / Michael Seagraves Architects
- 13 May 2015
Hassan Fathy would be proud standing on one side of the red sea and glaring into the yonder, eyes fixed on the red adobe architecture rep...
- ArchiDATUM Dates: Nikos Salingaros On A Sustainable Developmental Model
- 13 Apr 2015
A sustainable society builds innovation out of its own heritage and traditions, local evolved solutions and practices, etc. It does not t...

CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN DIRECTORY

- Mahali Mzuri Safari Camp / Real Studios
- 30 Sep 2015
It is a sight of beauty, a merging of man and nature, a design endeavour that only fans of both architecture and nature "archinatures" ca...
- Bloomsbury Waterfront Development/ NLé Works
- 21 Apr 2015
The project is a premium office space that maximises the great views across the city’s waterfront within a strategic site plan that incor...
- 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair
- 29 Jun 2015
A reference to fifty-four countries that constitute the African continent, the title of 1:54 establishes the parameters of the fair’s eth...