The Friendship Hospital in Satkhira, a rural area in Bangladesh, has won 2021’s prestigious RIBA International Prize for world’s best new building, thanks to its climate conscious architecture which demonstrates “care and humanity at the heart of its design.”

The hospital beat off competition from a gallery in Berlin and a cycle and footbridge in Denmark.

Satkhira is vulnerable to the rising sea levels caused by the climate crisis. The hospital is surrounded by waterlogged landscape that has been transformed into shrimp fisheries. The hospital design uses water as its chief starting point. An angular canal cuts through the centre of the building, which is constructed with locally made bricks, separating the inpatient and outpatient wings without the use of a wall. The canal also helps collect rainwater and help cool the building during the hot summer.

According to RIBA the hospital’s design blends in with the surrounding countryside smoothly and creates an “uplifting and inviting experience for visitors, patients and healthcare professionals.”

The hospital building has many prospects. One of the major ones is that it’s designed to harvest rainwater. The roofs and courtyard surfaces of the building drain water into the central canal which further goes into two storage tanks at either end of the site.

During the day time, there’s no need for artificial light as courtyards are set at angles that bounce daylight, shade the wards and also encourage cross ventilation.

Architect Kashef Chaudhry, who is the director of Urbana, a Dhaka-based company behind the project said, “When somebody is ill or needs care, one of the most important things is the mental aspect of it, not just the physical care. I think the kind of spaces you inhabit during treatment – with a view of water and trees, the sounds of birds, the feel of a breeze – goes a long way towards healing.”

The international award recognises projects from around the world that demonstrate design excellence and social impact.

Upon receiving the award, Chaudhry said, “I am encouraged that this may inspire more of us to commit, not in spite of, but because of limitations of resources and means, to an architecture of care both for humanity and for nature, to rise collectively to the urgencies that we face today on a planetary scale.”

The RIBA International Prize has previously been awarded to a school made of wood in Brazil and a university in Peru.