Anni Albers had no idea when she started weaving at the Bauhaus in the 1920s that her geometric designs would one day grace the doors of a hospital in rural Senegal. The weaving effect created by the pattern of dappled sunlight streaming in through the perforated brick walls of Tambacounda's new maternity and paediatric ward is reflected by the pattern of dappled sunlight streaming in through the perforated brick walls. These are minor elements, but they help to make the hardship of being here a little easier; lyrical touches that make the clinical atmosphere seem like a safe haven.

The complex of the art world and charity operates in unexpected ways. The creation of a new hospital has been made possible, thousands of miles away, by the extraordinary amounts that their art now sells for, as well as the fundraising power that their name commands, one hundred years after Anni and her husband Josef Albers met at the radical Weimar design school.

The outcome is a structure that effectively exemplifies the German duo's idea of "minimal means, maximum effect," while being located in one of the world's hottest locations and built to work without air conditioning. It occurred nearly by accident.

"It's because of my dermatologist in Paris," Nicholas Fox Weber, the vivacious American art historian who has led the Albers Foundation since Josef's death in 1976, explains. "One day, he informed me that he had founded a modest non-profit organization to assist Senegalese hospitals.

I inquired about accompanying him on his next trip. We arrived in Tambacounda six weeks later with supplies, including a bag full of blood and hundreds of toothbrushes.

What he discovered astounded Fox Weber. He was shown a "incubator" in the maternity hospital, which consisted of a tray on a table with three babies snuggled under a desk light. Hypodermic needles were strewn over the floor, and an operating table stood on three legs. Women were crowded together in various stages of labor or after giving birth, while others waited on bamboo mats on the floor outside.

What he observed inspired him to start Le Korsa, a non-profit organization committed to promoting healthcare and education in eastern Senegal and sponsored by the Albers Foundation (which is mostly funded by the sale of Albers paintings). Since 2005, they've constructed rural clinics, a women's shelter, an arts center, and the region's first secular school, both of which were designed by Japanese-American architect Toshiko Mori.

A new museum is also in the works, with an architect chosen from an all-African shortlist. The €2 million (£1.7 million) hospital facility is their most ambitious project to date, having taken four years to complete.

The two-story building is a remarkably unobtrusive addition to the 1970s hospital complex, winding its way for 125 meters in a serpentine arc to provide the greatest number of rooms with the smallest feasible footprint. Instead than adding another doughnut-shaped structure to the complex of circular wards, it flows between them, encircling the previous paediatric ward on one side and curving the other to encompass a new playground area shaded by a mature acacia tree.

Manuel Herz, the Basel-based architect behind the design, says, "We tried to create a model that the hospital could use for future extensions." He had never developed a hospital building before, but he was selected in 2017 as the only invited architect who refused to submit a design without first visiting the site to fully comprehend the context.

His earlier studies into African modernist architecture further tipped the scales in his favor. "Coming here and talking to everyone involved and figuring out what they really needed was critical," Herz adds. "To encourage cross-ventilation, we made the building as narrow as possible while leaving as much space as possible for hanging out."

Although having a place to hang out may not seem like an imperative medical necessity, a hospital stay in Tambacounda is very much a family event, as Herz learned on his study travels. People are congregated on every available surface on campus, with relatives of patients preparing meals, washing clothing, and resting on bamboo mats.

Pots and buckets lie beside stray animals, while newborn infants hide under mosquito nets under the trees, giving it the appearance of a chaotic encampment.

"It's a major issue," says Dr. Thérèse-Aida Ndiaye, the hospital's director since 2016. "Each patient is accompanied by four or five family members, each with their own set of behaviors. I just discovered one of my relatives showering here. We're not a home; we're a hospital."

They are necessary since there isn't enough personnel to offer all aspects of the patients' care, therefore relatives are called upon to take up the slack by doing errands and purchasing medicine from a local drugstore. Many people have traveled long distances to come here.

Tambacounda hospital handles roughly 40,000 patients a year from all across the area, including from Mali, Gambia, and Guinea across the border, with families sometimes obliged to come together since they can't leave dependents behind.

Herz's design accommodates the inevitable posse. There are lots of communal areas, including semicircular balconies off the first-floor hallway with curving seats overlooking the playground so parents can keep an eye on their children, which triples the previous capacity.

Two spiral stairs fall smoothly into the courtyards, providing a more elegant alternative to the more practical steps within. Herz's wife, Xenia, requested that laughing be heard from the wards, hence the playground was born (and the couple helped to fund its construction with donations from their wedding guests). It is the first and only playground in Tambacounda, which has a population of about 180,000 people, according to Herz.

The most crucial takeaway from the project is what it lacks: air conditioning. Tambacounda is scorching hot, with temperatures reaching above 40°C (104°F) in April, earning it the epithet Tangacounda, which means "house of heat" in the native Wolof language.

It's in the center of a large, flat tropical grassland with little movement in the air. The wards may be kept cool with merely ceiling fans if fundamental climate design concepts – taken from Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew's 1956 book, Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone – are followed (although air-conditioning is still required in the operating theatre).

The double-skin vaulted roof is the first technique, with a corrugated metal layer hung above a concrete one below, producing a thermal buffer that helps to pull air up via holes in the ceiling. The walls are made of hollow concrete bricks that enable air to circulate through while providing enough shade to keep the inside cool.

Rammed earth was explored, but given the logistical obstacles, Herz believes it was safer to utilize a method that local builders were acquainted with. The 50,000 bricks were produced on site using a single mold and stained with iron oxide to give them a reddish hue. The exposed concrete ceilings were given a weaving appearance by gluing bamboo mats to the formwork, echoing the patterned doors.

"It's critical that everything be made locally," Herz explains. "All of the windows were made in a nearby metal workshop, and all of the contractors are local."

It implies that all of the funds will flow to the area rather than to an international consortium, and they will be able to manage and maintain everything on their own." The more high-tech foreign equipment brought, the more likely something will go wrong – as the physicians have discovered with a malfunctioning new operating table and anaesthetics equipment that has caused them to miss their move into the facility.

The local manufacturing method also allowed for more experimentation, which resulted in a pleasant surprise. Herz requested that a replica facade be constructed on site to evaluate the impact of various sized holes in the bricks. Dr Magueye Ba, a medical doctor-turned-builder who has managed a number of Le Korsa developments, was in charge of the project.

Ba saw that a nearby village school needed a classroom, so instead of merely erecting a test wall that would be removed, he constructed a little structure for them from of multiple hospital bays. It stands triumphantly on the outskirts of the settlement, its jaunty roofline protruding from the grassy savanna and almost increasing the school's capacity.

Ba has subsequently employed the hollow bricks on another kindergarten project, and their unusual curved form has helped to create a new local lingo.

"It's the ideal result," Herz adds. "I'm no longer in charge; the design has taken on its own life."

Thanks to Oliver Wainwright at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.