Mapei is working alongside the EMERGENCY organisation and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop on the construction of a Centre of Excellence in Paediatric Surgery in Entebbe, Uganda. Mapei helped in the execution of the project by offering a consultancy service provided by the company’s engineers and a host of products and systems to build the Centre using the pisé technique, a special method that consists of compacting layer upon layer of a particular mix made from clay extracted nearby, that helps guarantee its thermal inertia so that temperature and humidity are maintained at a constant level.

Mapei was asked to help in this particular intervention and, after three years of research and experimental tests conducted together with the technical team from EMERGENCY, developed an innovative system to build the hospital complex: special binders of the latest generation with the capacity to make the pisé technique more versatile and more durable.

“When we were contacted by Renzo Piano in 2013, to work together on the project for the EMERGENCY organisation’s new Centre of Excellence in Paediatric Surgery, we accepted his proposal with enthusiasm because of the technological challenge it represented for us. And Mapei are proud to have contributed their materials and all their technical support to help carry out this project, which represents a meeting point between humanitarianism and scientific research”, commented Simona Giorgetta, Real Estate Coordinator for Mapei.

During the Salone del Mobile exhibition in Milano, from the 9^th to the 14^th of April, it will be possible to find out more about EMERGENCY’s new hospital thanks to an installation in the reception area of Pavilion 9/11. The Centre of Excellence in Paediatric Surgery will offer free care to patients from Uganda and to children from all over Africa. The model of the hospital, which has been made by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop and is on display for this occasion by Emergency, is one of the 16 projects selected to take part in the exhibition “Renzo Piano: the art of making buildings”, organised by the Royal Academy of London, and chosen by the renowned architect to represent the most significant moments of his artistic journey from the 1960’s until today.