Aiming to dramatically improve health and reduce costs in their country, the South African Ministry of Health funded an international design competition to build exemplary Health Promoting Lifestyle Centres (HPLCs). Jury members from five continents selected Farrow Partnership’s team as the winner in response to an open design brief, which called for a new type of health centre.

The HPLCs are planned for assessment, adaptation and construction in the rural settings, townships and cities throughout the country’s nine provinces.

The HPLCs are intended to advance strategic goals of South Africa’s national health insurance system by introducing a new “salutogenic” model that changes how people think about their health. While the concept of pathogenic (disease-causing) is well recognized, the notion of salutogenic (health-causing) presents a groundbreaking shift toward a vision of healthy living beyond conventional models of acute care, prevention and sustainability.