Nizeye Building Project

Evidence shows that a simple view of nature can radically improve health outcomes. So why couldn't we design a hospital where every patient had a window with a view Simple, site-specific designs can make a hospital that heals. Designing it is one thing, getting it built, we learned, is quite another. We worked with Bruce Nizet, a brilliant engineer, and he thought about construction differently than I had been taught in school. When we had to excavate this enormous hilltop, and a bulldozer was expensive and hard to get to site, Bruce suggested doing it by hand, using a method in Rwanda called ube deje, which means community works for the community. Hundreds of people came with shovels and hoes, and we excavated that hill in half the time and half the cost of that bulldozer. Instead of importing furniture, Bruce started a guild, and he brought in master carpenters to train others on how to make furniture by hand. And on this job site, 15 years after the Rwandan genocide, Bruce insisted that we bring on labor from all backgrounds, and that half of them be women. Bruce was using the process of building to heal, not just for those who were sick, but for the entire community as a whole. We call this the locally fabricated way of building, or LOFAB, and it has four pillars. Hire locally, source regionally, train where you can, and most importantly, think about every design decision as an opportunity to invest in the dignity of the places where you serve.