Design for a sustainable hospital in the Southeast Asian island of Borneo will progress as students recently presented final models to Health in Harmony, a non-profit organization that links healthcare to conservation in poor areas.

The work is the result of a hospital design workshop led by graduate student Arief Setiawan and funded by the Reinsch-Pierce International Initiatives Endowment Fund. The fund was established last fall and fuels efforts to apply the collective power of design and planning knowledge to emerging regions.

Ted Ullrich, who graduated this spring with a master's degree in Industrial Design, will continue working through August with Health in Harmony's Dr. Kinari Webb, the visionary physician who founded the organization.

"I will be continuing the project by helping build a bunk house while implementing some of the construction techniques and materials we proposed for the large-scale design," Ullrich said in an e-mail. "They recently got satellite internet there, which will allow me to continue to work on my projects during the hot afternoons, indoors."

Health in Harmony's unique approach to conservation combats illegal logging by providing healthcare and sustainable livelihoods to communities living around Gunung Palung National Park in Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. According to Webb, the building, "will physically embody the close link between human and environmental health once it opens its doors at the base of Gunung Palung National Park’s green foothills."

Learn more about Health in Harmony.