Photos taken by David Hahn, Article 25’s Senior Architectural Advisor for Healthcare, on his recent visit to Montserrat in September 2026.
Construction of Montserrat’s New National Hospital has been progressing for some time, and Article 25, who designed the hospital, is managing the build. The island is exposed to hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic activity and heavy rain, and the hospital is being built to be its most secure building, to NHS standards throughout.
David Hahn, Senior Architectural Advisor for Healthcare at Article 25, helped design the hospital and has just made his first visit to the site since. These are his reflections from the trip.
“Having landed late in Antigua on a British Airways flight like any other, with 300 other people, I moved slowly through immigration and customs and eventually reached the Fly Montserrat desk for the last short flight. The scale of the operation was much smaller. I explained that I had missed my booked flight and they said there’s another one now, but go straight through security. So... a small but flexible operation for a small island.
Landing in St John’s was interesting, and from the air I got my first view of the hospital building, almost reaching its full height. Airport and hospital are just a few hundred yards apart, with my hotel about the same distance in the other direction.
The rental car was waiting unlocked with the key in the glove box. Nothing to check, nothing to sign, a different way of getting going.
Montserrat is very hilly! Roads are windier and steeper than anything in the UK. Understated beeping of horns is common, in greeting to someone you know. And parking spaces are generally steeper than the roads.
On Monday morning I was shown around the site by the contractor’s main man, Vinay. The site is hot and dusty and full of activity, and the team is busy constructing a building with more concrete and reinforcement than I have ever worked on. It has to be earthquake resistant.
Gradually I get my bearings, walking around those floors where they have built walls and recognising the shapes of rooms I helped to design. It is a strange and wonderful thing to see them become real.
There are some local workers, but the majority are from India, as the contractor is from there. Communication takes a little extra care, but I get to know Ajeet and Akhil, who are in charge of the masonry team, and we talk through the details together on site.”
It all comes down to communication. A hospital is only as good as the understanding behind it: what the people who will use it need, what the people building it can achieve, and how well the two are shared. Whether it’s a masonry team in Montserrat, hospital staff, or designers and engineers in the UK, close collaboration and open knowledge-sharing are what turn drawings into a building that works.
That is how Article 25 manages this project from the UK, in conditions where hurricanes, earthquakes and a container-ship supply chain all have to be planned for. We pair that planning with our NHS standards expertise and clear communication with the teams on the ground, so that the standard of care in the design is the standard that gets built.
Read more:
Building for resilience: Preparing Montserrat’s New National Hospital for hurricane season: our former Site Architect, Mark Webb, explains how the team prepares for the stormy weather ahead
