A hospital in Bangladesh's cyclone-prone Sathkira district has been named the world's best new building and was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Prize 2021, for putting "care and humanity at the heart of its design."
The Friendship Hospital is designed to serve the low-income rural population with minimal resources facing grave environmental impact. In a press release announcing the winner, RIBA noted that the Friendship Hospital was built in a "fragile and dynamic environment," where grain fields have been converted into shrimp farms due to rising sea levels.
Designed by architect Kashef Chowdhury, the hospital was commissioned by sustainable development NGO, Friendship. Chowdhury in a statement said that the jury's decision to honor a project from the "global periphery" is a "sublimely important moment."
The 80-bed hospital was built from locally-made bricks surrounded with open courtyards and canals that run through the complex to separate inpatient and outpatient wings. It is built with a budget of $2 million.
The canal helps with microclimatic cooling during hot Bangladesh summers, according to the RIBA.
The RIBA commended the hospital's design for creating "uplifting and inviting experience for visitors, patients and healthcare professionals."
"I am encouraged that this may inspire more of us to commit, not in spite of, but because of limitations of resources and means, to an architecture of care both for humanity and for nature, to rise collectively to the urgencies that we face today on a planetary scale," he said in a press statement.
Satkhira, crisscrossed by many rivers, is located in the southwest of Bangladesh where cyclones are frequent and sea level is rising. It has Sunderbans forest to its south and borders West Bengal in the west.
The prize's jury comprised experts from Europe, the US, Asia and South America, and was chaired by French architect and urban planner Odile Decq. In a press statement, Decq said that the hospital is a demonstration of how beautiful architecture can be achieved through good design when working with a relatively modest budget and with difficult contextual constraints," she added.