Revive Jacmel
Approached by a Portland Area surgeon, the University of Oregon - Portland hosted a design competition to envision a small clinic in Jacmel, Haiti. The process started with a charette, where students and building professionals and interested locals came together to put all the issues out there and get ideas flowing. There were 5 team submissions and our design was ultimately chosen for "Best Overall Design," "Most Constructible," & "People's Choice." We developed a 100% DD set under the guidance of Waterleaf Architecture while collaborating with members of OSU construction administration team and KPFF structural engineers. The package allowed for fundraising and was used to inform further programming and design decisions. The budget was later set by the amount fundraised and a new site was chosen for accessibility. The building's design has been adapted to better fit the community's needs and the clients desired program changes. Students from OSU went down to Haiti to aid in the construction of the clinic.
Images and Plans
Technical Description
The building is 3012 S.F.(81’-8” x 36’-4”)and includes two Operating rooms, Patient and staff toilet facilities, a Pre-Op area of (2) beds and a Post-Op area of (3) beds, a Nurses Station, Clean Work Room, a Soiled Work Room, and storage. Along with surgical procedures the facility will perform dental procedures as well.
Local materials and labor played a large part in building the clinic in Jacmel. As witnessed in the 2010 earthquake, many traditional buildings fared poorly both because of poor material and poor construction techniques. Good performance of the building in future seismic events was required, but local material and labor needed to be utilized to keep the project within the limited budget. Any extra money spent on the building was money that wasn’t available for much-needed equipment.
Designers needed to make sure the design was constructible without skilled labor and using local material of unknown quality. The one-story clinic was built of confined masonry walls and a long spanning wood truss roof structure. Confined masonry was selected both because it could be built with local materials and labor and because it has favorable performance in an earthquake. The wood trusses were supplied by a US manufacturer and then assembled on site.
Confined masonry is a technique used in many developing areas due to the ease of construction and use of local materials. It consists of masonry walls “confined” by steel reinforced concrete beams and columns at specified intervals. The masonry is constructed first with voids left out for the columns. The reinforcement for the columns and beams are then constructed and poured around the walls with the ends of the walls used as formwork. This allows the walls and columns to be interlocked together which provides superior performance.
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