Architecture community chips in to help combat COVID-19 pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic expands globally, architects are leveraging their technologies, facilities, and research skills to aid in the fight against the pandemic.

Jupe Health, a humanitarian startup, has developed a new type of shippable hospital room that can be quickly distributed to crisis zones amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The units are enclosed by a faceted exterior in soft-top or hardcovers and are either solar or battery-powered and fitted with water-disposal.

Humanitas Healthcare and the World Economic Forum, is developing Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments (CURA). It is an open-source, design and build initiative that converts shipping containers as biocontainment pods. 

SheltAir, a domed bio-containment pod erected using inflatable cushions could help coronavirus patients isolate. The pods consist of a grid shell of plastic rods, which is assembled flat and pushed up through a pneumatic formwork of inflatables. 

STAAT Mod (Strategic, Temporary, Acuity-Adaptable Treatment), a prefabricated modular solution that can be deployed anywhere, will provide hospital-level care to patients suffering from COVID-19. They can be deployed in diverse environments from convention centers to free-standing hospital expansions.

Shipping containers turn into mobile intensive care units to treat COVID-19 patients

Architects have turned to shipping containers to make everything from pop-up shops to co-working spaces, and even makeshift homes. But now the humble corrugated steel box might have found one of its most useful reincarnations yet, in the hands of an international network of architects and engineers who have come together to convert them into two-bed intensive care units for the coronavirus pandemic.

The open-source project, dubbed Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments (CURA) is harnessing the skills of experts from around the world to develop self-contained, mobile ICUs that can be plugged into hospitals or installed in parking lots.

The first prototype unit, currently under construction in Italy, is nearly complete and is scheduled to be deployed in a hospital in Milan.

CURA units are designed to be far more than a giant metal box with a couple of beds inside. Each is set up with negative air pressure, creating a bio-confinement environment that can restrict the virus from leaving the chamber.

It's one major advantage over the tent-like centers that hospitals have been setting up to cope with the influx of patients, which could put doctors and other health-care workers at risk of infection.

Since the approximately six-meter-long shipping container design is more or less standard around the world, the CURA design should be more or less adaptable around the world.

The B.Arch from MIDAS is designed to help architects create innovative solutions to address the needs of the community. Admissions are open. Visit www.midas.ac.in to join now.