Maternity Center
Senegal
2024
The baobab tree is mostly water, just like us humans, just like the womb we come from. It is the largest succulent species on this planet, holding onto life within its bark and sprawling branches, rooting our design deep into the site and outwards to the people it serves. As the national tree of Senegal, it has nearly 300 recorded uses from food, oil, and shade to shelter, gathering, and connection to the immortal. The unique touch of the baobab is that it serves us much more alive than dead, its wood is soft and spongy, so full of water that it does not burn and carries no structural value. But when alive, it continues providing, giving, redistributing. It is even said that women in villages with baobabs have higher rates of successful pregnancy, whether that is from the vital community centered around the tree or the vitamin C that comes from its juice. We wanted to honor the water that sustains life in Senegal but also the husk that remains when water has departed, a shell that once contained a single soul and now has the opportunity to contain much more.