From Furnace to Care: Designing Equitable Health Access for Firozabad's Glassware Workforce

Author:Gauri Goyal
Site Location: Firozabad
Institute:MIT Art, Design & Technology University, School of Architecture & Planning
Advisor: Dr. Neeti Trivedi

Description

From Furnace to Care: Designing Equitable Health Access for Firozabad’s Glassware Workforce

Firozabad, the Glass City of India, produces the vast majority of the nation’s glass through more than 150,000 artisans — the Kanchhkars — who labour beside furnaces exceeding 50°C, breathing silica dust without protection. Burns, silicosis and failing lungs are their daily wage, yet the city has no specialised care of its own; the nearest burn centre lies 40 km away in Agra, where the critical Golden Hour is lost in transit.

From Furnace to Care is a specialised burn and respiratory hospital sited beside — and as an extension of — the Centre for Development of the Glass Industry, placing treatment within reach of the workers who need it. Its concept, the Breath of Life, turns the worker’s struggle to breathe into architecture: breathing courtyards that inhale, a filtering terracotta skin, and stepped terraces that exhale. Rooms are assigned by clinical need, not wealth; passive cooling and rooftop solar keep care affordable and self-reliant. Equity is built into location, plan and section — returning breath, and dignity, to the hands that give India’s glass.