International Union of Architects-Public Health Group (UIA-PHG)

Global University Program in Healthcare Architecture (GUPHA)

China Hospital Build Exhibition & Congress (CHBEC)

Center for Health Systems & Design (CHSD)

International Union of Architects General Secretariat

International Union of Architects Commission for International Competition

Deadline: April 20, 2015 (US & Canada Central Time)

Center for Health Systems & Design, Texas A&M University

Email: luzhipeng@live.com; Phone: +1-979-845-6183

1. UIA-PHG is a work group of UIA. The 2105 UIA-PHG International Competition is supervised by the UIA

General Secretariat and the UIA Commission for International Competition, and complies with the UIAUNESCO

2. Texas A&M University is the co-organizer. Therefore, students of Texas A&M University will not be

The Ronald L. Skaggs Endowed Professor of

China Hospital Build Exhibition & Congress

Fellow, Center for Health Systems & Design

The jurors and the technical advisers will not

serve as advisers for students participating

Background Globalization and fast transportation networks have brought people living closer to

each other but also created unpredictable public health threats from time to time. An

unknown disease or virus that was originally contained in isolated areas can affect any

corner in the world within just a few days. In the past several months, the world has

witnessed the exponential spread of the Ebola outbreak. The World Health

Organization reported that the number of Ebola cases were 9,936 with 4,877 deaths as

of October 22, 2014. The same situation happened 11 years ago when SARS (Severe

Acute Respiratory Syndrome) infected 8,273 individuals in 37 countries with 775

deaths. To fight against Ebola, SARS and other communicable disease epidemics,

health organizations should act quickly to identify, diagnose, isolate and treat patients.

However, this may be impossible in many regions, especially in developing countries

or remote areas, due to the lack of quality healthcare resource. Therefore, a flexible,

effective and affordable measure is needed to provide swift response to communicable

Mission To develop a mobile unit that can facilitate the swift diagnosis, isolation and treatment

of patients with Ebola or other communicable diseases, and safely transport infected

patients to facilities that are able to provide appropriate care.

Purposes This competition is to seek innovative approaches that help curb the outbreak of

communicable disease epidemics, increase people’s awareness of global impacts of

ongoing or potential public health threats, and to encourage more students to be

interested and engaged in health-related design.

1. Full-time college students at the undergraduate, graduate or doctoral levels

2. The student is qualified if she/he submit the project before graduation

3. Students from all disciplines are welcome to participate; A multi-disciplinary team

(e.g., architecture, medicine, public health, mechanical engineering) is strongly

according to the UIA competition guidelines.

4. Can be a team project but no more than 3 students per team

5. One team/student should submit only one project

1. Type of disease: Identify a type of communicable disease that is potentially a

public health concern in your country, for instances, Ebola, SARS and TB

2. Type of vehicle: Identify the vehicle that may work best for the mobile unit in your

area/country. The vehicle can be, but not limited to a bus, an aircraft, a train cargo,

a boat or a container. You can modify the skin and the space of the original vehicle

3. Space program: The spaces include, but are not limited to, storage for medical

supplies and/or equipment, decontamination area, treatment/diagnose area,

4. The Metric System (e.g., meter, kilogram…) should be used for measurement

6. Please include the following information into the poster(s) for your design:

(1) The type of the disease you are dealing with; describe its nature and main

transmission path (airborne, waterborne, contact, vector & vehicle)

(4) Design drawings (floor plan, section, elevation, axonometric, and/or

(5) Air handling system (e.g., natural ventilation or mechanical ventilation)

1. Submission deadline: April 20, 2015, 11:59PM (U.S. & Canada Central Time)

2. Submit your documents to PHGcompetition@hotmail.com. No hardcopies are

3. Create the poster(s) to introduce your design

(1) No identifiable information (i.e., names of the participants and universities)

(4) Number: no more than three posters per project

(a) If sent as attachments of the email, individual file should not exceed 5MB

(i.e., should not exceed 15MB per submission)

(b) If cloud drive is used, the total size of the file(s) per submission should

not exceed 50 MB. Four types of cloud drive are acceptable for the

4. Please submit a separate document (Word or PDF) that includes following

(2) Students’ contact information (i.e., phone, email and mailing address)

(3) Students’ affiliation (department, college/school, university)

(4) Name(s) of the advisor(s) and contact information

(5) State whether you would like to disclose your names if the organizers publish

5. Please submit a copy of your student ID for verification; if you do not have a

student ID, please attach a support letter signed by your department head to verify

6. Failing to submit all required documents will be automatically disqualified.

 Honorable Mentions (up to 10 teams): USD $750, before tax

Winning projects will be displayed on the 2015 UIA-PHG Annual Seminar to be held on

May 23-25, 2015, at the World Expo Center, Dalian, China.

Timelines December 5, 2014: Competition launched by UIA and the organizers

December 5, 2014-April 1, 2015: Question and answer period. We will not answer

competition-related questions after April 1, 2015.

May 24, 2015: Result and award announcement

Should you need more information, please contact Dr. Zhipeng Lu at

 Visit www.uia-phg.org for more details about the competition and the 2015 UIAPHG

 Visit sterismobilesolutions.com for examples of mobile medical units

 The organizers may publish a portion of or all submitted projects online or in print

 The participants own the copyright of their projects, graphics and drawings

 The participants should notify the organizers if they would not like to publish their

 Any submission with participants’ names on the poster will be automatically

 The technical adviser will assign a code to the submitted project; only he keeps a

document that relates the codes to the participants/teams

 The jurors will not see participants’ names during the evaluation and voting

 Only top-prize and honorable mention winners’ names will be revealed and

 The projects will remain anonymous when published unless participants/teams

Organizers International Union of Architects- Public Health Group (UIA-PHG)

The UIA-PHG is one of the working bodies of the UIA, the Union International des

Architects or International Union of Architects. It was founded in1955 and represents

members and guests from all continents and a growing participation from more than 60

countries in 2012. Within the context of the UIA philosophy, it is the vision of the UIAPHG

that world public health can profit by the dedication of architects to provide

efficient, safe and aesthetic health care buildings and an environment that can

contribute to a more rapid healing of the patients as well as an improvement in staff

operations and satisfaction. To accomplish this vision, the UIA-PHG should share its

knowledge and experience not only within the group but also to other architects,

engineers and consultants, health care managers and providers, health care

organizations and governments, as well as to the general public. It should also initiate

research projects that contribute to better health care buildings and environments. The

Director of UIA-PHG is Adjunct Professor Warren Kerr (w.kerr@hamessharley.com.au)

from the University of Western Australia.

The Global University Program in Healthcare Architecture (GUPHA) is a subgroup of

UIA-PHG. It dedicates to promote international exchange, collaboration and knowledge

dissemination between educators involved in teaching and research, along with UIA

member practitioners and representatives of academic institutions, governmental and

non-governmental agencies with an interest in architectural education and academic

research in the area of healthcare architecture. Since founded in 2000, GUPHA has

grown to include 25 member institutions. The Chair of GUPHA is Professor David

Allison (adavid@clemson.edu) from Clemson University, U.S.

The China Hospital Build & Infrastructure Exhibition and Congress (China HBI), coorganized

by the National Institute of Hospital Administration of the Ministry of Health

and Informa Exhibitions, is the largest event of this kind in Asia. In the past 15 years,

the China HBI has successfully built a solid platform for knowledge and experience

exchange in hospital planning, design, construction and management. In 2014, the

exhibition accommodated over 260 vendors with a 12,000 square meter exhibiting

area and approximately 15,000 visitors. The congress attracted over 1,500 attendees

and 220 invited speakers from all over the world. Among the attendees, 90% of them

were hospital administrators and construction project managers. The congress brings

project opportunities to healthcare consultants, designers and researchers.

Texas A&M University's Center for Health Systems & Design is home to the world's

largest collection of interdisciplinary faculty, students, and affiliated professionals

committed to research and education about environments for healthcare. CHSD is a

creation of the Colleges of Architecture and Medicine at Texas A&M University

intended to promote research, innovation and communication in an interdisciplinary

program that focuses on evidence-based health facility planning and design.