Manuel Herz wins Senegal hospital project in Tambacounda

Manuel Herz architects win Senegal Hospital project
Manuel Herz won the Tambacounda Hospital project in Senegal, a scheme conceived and funded by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa.
(Image credit: Play-Time, courtesy Manuel Herz Architects)

The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation already has strong ties with the Tambacounda region of Senegal; the organisation was behind the Thread Centre, which opened in 2015 as a site for artists from around the world to live and work in the rural village of Sinthian. Now, the foundation and Le Korsa have conceived and are funding a new initiative in the area - the extension to the local hospital – and the project has just been awarded to award winning Swiss architect Manuel Herz.

The brief called for the architect to enhance and expand the existing hospital facilities, and after a rigorous selection process, the Basel-based architect was chosen for the scheme, which is due to commence on site in September 2018.

The winning proposal feels both modern and sensitive to its environment. The extension features a curvilinear building connected to the existing hospital by a covered pathway. Brickwork that creates a lattice-like texture both serves a functional purspose, in that it filters light through and helps the air to circulate naturally, but also references local architecture, such as the Mashrabiya tradition. Herz, who was the curator and architect of the National Pavilion of the Western Sahara at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2016, has worked with the region’s architecture before.

The design ‘aims at becoming a model and new paradigm for medical institutions in Senegal and for the African continent as a whole’, says Herz.

The project will provide a much needed boost in the capacity of the Tambacounda hospital, which currently recieves about 20,000 patients a year and is overstretched in terms of resources and space.

Manuel Herz architects win Tambacounda Hospital project

The hospital is designed as a complex of interconnected volumes of old and new, set within the Senegal landscape.

(Image credit: Play-Time, courtesy Manuel Herz Architects)

Manuel Herz architects win Tambacounda Hospital project in Senegal

The interstitial space between the existing buildings and the new extension will become a space for meeting and communication.

(Image credit: Play-Time, courtesy Manuel Herz Architects)

Manuel Herz architects win Senegal Hospital project for Josef and Anni Albers foundation

The corridors are protected from sun and rain by a brick screen that allows cross-ventilation and filters light through. 

(Image credit: Play-Time, courtesy Manuel Herz Architects)

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of Manuel Herz and the website of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).

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