The 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice may have been postponed until 29th August because of the Coronavirus outbreak, but architecture isn't stopping in this emergency.
Quite a few architects and designers have indeed been working on projects to improve people's conditions and to help hospitals and health professionals. Among them there is Italian Professor Carlo Ratti, founder of Carlo Ratti Associati studio and Director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Yet Ratti is not alone, but he is part of an international group of architects, designers, engineers, doctors, military experts and NGOs that developed an open-source project called "CURA", a word that in Latin and Italian means "cure" or "treatment", but in this case also an acronym standing for "Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments". Beware, though, this is not your average field hospital: CURA consists indeed in converting 20-foot intermodal shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Units (ICU) for COVID-19 patients. The units - each destined to two COVID-19 intensive-care patients - work autonomously, but the pods can be connected using an inflatable structure to create multiple modular configurations (from 4 beds to over 40).
The units can be mounted as fast as hospital tents, but they are as safe as an isolation ward as they are characterised by a biocontainment: an extractor creates indoor negative pressure, complying with the standards of Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms (AIIRs).
The pods can be deployed in cities around the world (shipping containers can easily be moved through different modes of transport - from ship to rail or truck), responding in relatively short times to the shortage of ICU space in hospitals and the spread of the disease.
Once arrived, the units can be installed anywhere, from a hospital parking lot to expand the main hospital capacity, to a field hospital. The first unit is currently being built in Milan, Italy, with the sponsorship of European bank UniCredit.
The project was the immediate answer to the main problem caused by the pandemic, first in China, then in Italy and now all over the world, as the virus has quickly spread from Asia to Europe and America as well.
So far both China and Italy responded by creating makeshift emergency hospitals in tents, tensile structures or prefabricated wards (Chinese company Winsun also came up with 3D-printed isolation wards - concrete pods built using a robotic arm - for Xianning Central Hospital). In Italy there has also been a debate about reopening or adapting hospitals that were closed down or repurposing existing buildings.
Yet tents are not ideal as the risk of contamination for medical staff is higher, while prefabricated structures and existing buildings that need to be readapted imply longer times.
CURA is as fast to mount as a hospital tent, but as safe as a hospital's isolation ward to work in, thanks to biocontainment. The pods also tackle the sustainability aspect as the project consists in readapting shipping containers. Once converted into CURA units, the pods can be re-used in different parts of the world.
The CURA units are developed in an open-source, non-for-profit framework and the team behind the project also solicits suggestions and improvements.
Ratti and the international team that joined the project (comprising more than 100 people) worked on the project from their own homes, with meetings on Zoom and Skype and exchanging projects and ideas via email, and they should be praised for finding a solution that could buy scientists more time to find a cure and a vaccine.
Let's hope that, once the Coronavirus emergency is over (and let's hope that happens soon), architecture festivals like the Venice Biennale will develop sections and awards dedicated to emergency projects (to tackle issues such as climate change, pandemics, earthquakes...) as this is a key area that must definitely be explored more with fast and scalable solutions.
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