A closing remark during the session “Off the Grid—Sustainable Healthcare for Developing Nations: Lessons from Afghanistan” summed up the impact that projects like one undergone by Cannon Design can have on healthcare across the globe.

And that is infrastructure.

Deborah Sheehan, ACHE, EDAC, LEED, and regional director of healthcare at Cannon Design; Mustafa Nouri, AIA, chief architect of International Organization for Migration; Troy Hoggard, AIA, EDAC, LEED, and associate vice president of Cannon Design; and David Kuffner, AIA, and principal of Cannon Design shared details of the design and construction of two hospitals in Afghanistan based on a prototype that covers the gap between rural clinic and city hospital. The team faced several challenges during the project, most significant being water storage, fuel storage, and understanding the Afghan culture. After all, at the end of the day, what Cannon was creating could not be a Western hospital; it had to be Islamic at its core.

The prototype created answers challenges in the rural terrain of Afghanistan, but it also serves as a seed to grow from in similar environments ranging from Zambia to St. Lucia to rural China. And that prototype includes the infrastructure that a hospital in a secluded locale brings to the area, and the possibilities for further development that arise from its creation.