Memphis Mission Hospital

  • LOCATION: Victorias City, Philippines
  • STATUS: Design development
  • PROJECT TEAM: Carlos Arnaiz, Jund Deng, Alden Ching, Patricia Tan, Kate Sarmiento, Luis Carlos Martinez, Haoran Wang, Wenna Dai, Magdalena Fronska
The Memphis Mission Hospital is the first ground-up charity mission hospital in the Philippines. It is located 3 kilometers from the center of Victorias City in Negros Occidental and pays homage to the rich tropical landscape of the region. The hospital is divided into 4 inter-connected architectural volumes that in their distinctly semi-open arrangement offer sweeping vistas of a different garden from every window. Upon arrival to the hospital, a large curved roof welcomes visitors to an open-air plaza with a large banyan tree at its center that serves as a kind of new community center for Victorias City. Under this shimmering light blue metallic roof one finds a library, a health-focused restaurant, consultation rooms and a registration area for patients. Large monumental steps lead to the operating rooms contained in a simple single-pitch structure clad in natural stone and bounded by a vegetable garden to the north. The doctor & nurse’s private dormitory is raised on a stone plinth to ensure privacy and enveloped in an aluminum rain screen that resembles the bamboo curtains of vernacular Filipino homes. Each bedroom faces a flower garden of swirling paths while morning light cascades down from a series of clearstory windows that sweep upwards to the sky.  At the eastern edge of the Memphis Mission Hospital are two extraordinary public spaces: the artist studio and chapel.