First blood: this blood collection centre, the largest in India, aims to demystify and humanise the process of blood donation.Providing services for blood collection, storage and research, Prathama Blood Centre in Ahmedabad, regional capital of Gujarat, attracted the jurors' attention as an example of a large and quite complex building in the developing world. Designed by local practice Matharoo Associates (whose Kahnian crematorium cre·ma·to·ri·um n. pl. cre·ma·to·ri·ums or cre·ma·to·ri·a A furnace or establishment for the incineration of corpses. crematorium Noun pl -riums or featured in the 2003 awards cycle. AR December 2003), the blood centre is conceived as a pioneering new type of health building (prathama means 'first' in Sanskrit) that combines sophisticated laboratory and testing facilities with an enlightened, humanistic approach. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The centre is the outcome of a competition staged by a charitable trust The arrangement by which real or Personal Property given by one person is held by another to be used for the benefit of a class of persons or the general public. with the aim of recasting and restaging the act of blood donation in a more inviting public domain, so mitigating the fear and repulsion repulsion /re·pul·sion/ (re-pul´shun) 1. the act of driving apart or away; a force that tends to drive two bodies apart. 2. subconsciously associated with such public spiritedness. The new building can store and process 200 000 units of blood, making it the largest blood bank in India. Donations are entirely voluntary, and the centre's on-site facilities are backed up by a fleet of mobile collection units. Despite the programme's ambitions, the budget was parsimonious par·si·mo·ni·ous adj. Excessively sparing or frugal. par  si·mo ($200 per sqm, including fit out and site development). Costs were kept in check by custom designing and locally fabricating internal elements such as doors, windows, modular furniture, partitions and work stations. Even so, Matharoo Associates have succeeded in making a building that has an evident decency and dignity. A four-storey glass-clad stack of laboratories intersects roughly at right angles so as to form a right angle or right angles, as when one line crosses another perpendicularly. See also: Right with a hermetic hermetic /her·met·ic/ (her-met´ik) impervious to air. her·met·ic or her·met·i·cal adj. Completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air. concrete volume housing administration and support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services . Between these clearly articulated functional elements is a more free-form atrium space, created by stretching and curving the concrete wall. Contained within this concrete skin at ground level are user-friendly enclaves for blood collection (separated from the more clinical blocks), so that people can just wander in and make a donation. To encourage a regular throughput of donors, there are none of the formalities and inhibitions of a formal hospital setting. Helping to soothe nerves, the donation suite overlooks a tranquil reflecting pool, while within the atrium there are views and glimpses through to the more specialised laboratory spaces, communicating a sense of the building's gravitas grav·i·tas n. 1. Substance; weightiness: a frivolous biography that lacks the gravitas of its subject. 2. and wider social purpose. C. S. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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