Makerere University College of Health Sciences is a semi-autonomous constituent college of Makerere University, Uganda’s oldest university. The school’s campus is currently located on Mulago Hill between the new and old Mulago, in northeast Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city. Although the Mulago National Referral Hospital is currently affiliated with the college for practical training, the university’s management expects to build its teaching hospital to expand all hospital, academic, and other relevant facilities as a fully-fledged development.

The proposed facility will sit on 30 acres of land at Katalemwa in Gayaza Wakiso district, slightly away from central Kampala, and will comprise three main schools that offer degrees at different levels, with each school focusing on 200 students as the annual intake capacity, namely, School of Medicine, School of Biomedical science and School of Dental Sciences, Nursing & Pharmacology. The design also proposes Institutes related to public awareness & knowledge of health care. These institutes are designed to offer short courses in health education and research-based public awareness programs.

ECL has created an evolutionary conceptual design model for the Teaching Hospital and the School of Medicine of Makerere University as an approach to a sustainable and evidence-based design in healing architecture. The basic architectural concept was derived from the highlights of Ugandan culture and their traditional architectural concepts. These concepts were mainly used in aesthetical aspects and space planning, while the focus is on exploring the latest trends in healthcare architecture.

The facilities are categorized as different stages of a long-term master plan and intend to spread out entirely over the next 10-15 years. The design is based on a patient-centered holistic care philosophy and on principles of ‘healing architecture. Primary attention is given to contextual sensitivity, and the master plan of 30 acres was developed considering different types of traffic patterns and zoning with controlled access. The relationship between the built and the unbuilt is blurred by landscaped interactive spaces. The teaching hospital is proposed in the public zone, while the education and administration facilities are gathered in the semi-public zone. The overall master plan was designed to accommodate healthcare functions and learning spaces. Hence a combination of healing and learning environments was adopted.