Kachumbala Maternity Unit | HKS Architects Kachumbala, Uganda, Africa The Challenge Kachumbala is an impoverished rural area in eastern Uganda with limited access to health care and a high infant mortality rate. Its outdated, two-room, 1950s-era maternity unit could not accommodate nearly half of the women who travel long distances to the facility to give birth. Instead, many women choose to stay home and give birth without medical assistance, increasing the risk of infant and maternal deaths due to infection or birthing complications. Designers were challenged to create a modern maternity unit that would be welcoming and able to handle multiple births every day. The Design Solution The passively-designed unit houses two delivery suites and a seven-bed postnatal ward to accommodate a minim

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