The American Red Cross sponsored Blood Bank (West Branch) project, which was established with the mission of providing a high quality work space for the Haitian Red Cross head office including volunteer assembly halls, exterior spaces for relaxation and multipurpose space that can serve if necessary as emergency evacuation centre.

Key design principles are: provide transparency and natural light penetration, as well as cross ventilation, with the use of recycled metal shading screens, hand perforated by the local artist from the Campeche community; add emphasis on architectural finishes both for aesthetics and durability; engaging locally available materials; reduce building energy dependency on EDH through the use of solar panel and generator; provide rainwater harvesting; design a leach field well integrated within the softscape.


Location: Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Year of construction: 2016

Client: Global Communities

Consultants: Sisul Consulting, E4P

Donor: American Red Cross

Credits: Samuel Eliodor, Jeannie S. Lee, Andrea Panizzo, Etienne Pernot du Breuil, Marco Rakower, Gianluca Stefani, Mihail Dinu, Radim Tkadlec.