Clinic promotes a frame of mind. It heralds a meaningful and creative encounter between Western medicine and African people challenged to overcome the AIDS epidemic.
The structure of the ritual is the starting point of the design. As a sign visible from afar, clinic embodies the desire to provide appealing AIDS/HIV prevention and directly accessible basic treatment. The design is conceived as an undefined unit open to the projection of villagers� ideas.Through repeated journeys and visits and intense use, the experience of villagers is visually linked with the object clinic. Through ritual use, clinic becomes a sign of hope.

clinic wants to establish mutual trust and explicitly treats the ritual of travelling to remote villages as repetition. Over and over, the journeys of clinic communicate its message to the people and those affected by the epidemic: that prevention and careful treatment does make a difference.
The setting of the ritual sees the visits of the clinic as the fulcrum of encounter between the team of physicians, the patients, their companions and interested villagers (see diagram).
Greetings are exchanged under the sunscreen of the vehicle. People arrive, wait, receive basic medical treatment and collective AIDS/HIV prevention begins. Having come to a halt, the clinic capsule now invites patients and their companions to respond: to enter into conversation with a doctor or an assistant, who supplies information, medication and condoms for a small fee.
An encouraging and receptive atmosphere is created inside the capsule. It makes it possible to exchange gifts and to assimilate the entire import of the message on AIDS/HIV.