Archinect - News

New York City’s interactive Tree Map offers live insights into over 860,000 trees across the city

2022-12-13T10:19:00-05:00

Did you know that the London planetree is the most common species of tree in New York City? The fun fact is one of many which can be gleaned from a new interactive map launched by the City of New York, allowing users to explore the city’s tree population. The NYC Tree Map replaces NYC Park’s previous Street Tree Map, and contains data on over 860,000 park and street trees within what the creators call “the most comprehensive and up-to-date living tree map in the world.”

Image credit: NYC Parks

Trees on the interactive map are represented by circles, with the size and color of each circle representing the tree’s diameter and species, respectively. Users can gather data for an entire species of tree, trees in a particular borough or neighborhood, or each individual tree across the map, learning about the tree’s contribution to stormwater management, energy conservation, or air pollutant removal.

Image credit: NYC Parks

For example, the map notes that the 4,265 trees recorded in the Lowe...

Goettsch Partners' tiered office tower 'is the healthiest in Chicago'

2022-12-02T09:14:00-05:00

Goettsch Partners (GP) has completed an office tower that it claims is the healthiest in Chicago. Called 320 South Canal, the 51-story structure is the latest in a series by the same team that focuses on tenant health and wellness.

Image © Nick Ulivieri Photography

The 1,740,000-square-foot tower features a conference center, fitness center, restaurant, to-go market, bank, a cocktail lounge in an adjacent structure, as well as parking for cars and bicycles. It also includes a privately owned public park called The Green. The development team of Riverside Investment & Development, Convexity Properties, and Clark Construction also delivered Chicago’s Bank of America Tower in 2020 and the 150 North Riverside office building in 2017. All three projects are certified or precertified LEED Gold, WELL Platinum and WiredScore Platinum.

Image © Nick Ulivieri Photography

320 South Canal hosts a range of design strategies that aim to improve occupant wellbeing, including advanced air monitoring ...

New York is making rat infestation an issue for construction site managers across the city

2022-11-04T09:00:00-04:00

The New York City Council passed the Rat Action Plan Thursday, a package of four bills that set new pest management standards. Among other measures, it will require applicants for certain construction work permits in the city to certify that a licensed exterminator was retained to effectively treat the premises for rodent extermination.

The city is currently enduring a spike in its world-renowned rodent population, as rat sightings in all five boroughs have gone up by a total of 71% when compared to last year. Outdoor dining sheds are at least partially to blame, but the city’s public sanitation standards and its now record-breaking number of construction sites are also contributors, prompting the city to put forward the new plan.

“New construction is still booming, anytime you cut open the ground you usually open nests of rats, that would really be a big part of it, as far as sightings,” a local pest control specialist explained to the Daily News recently. The new requirement only applies to job sites in “designated rat mitigation zones” and will take effect in April. An annual report from the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will chart the success of the efforts and be made publicly available no later than November 1st of the same year.

Renzo Piano’s trio of new hospitals in Greece will stand as 'modern design templates' in a changing world

2022-08-08T16:40:00-04:00

$750 million will bring a trio of much-needed modern hospital designs to Greece by way of Renzo Piano. This set of hospital projects is in collaboration with Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Health Initiative, which aims to deliver new hospital infrastructure and public healthcare in Greece. Elianna Konialis, lead of the SNF Health Initiative, shared with Nate Berg of FastCompany that the goal of these hospitals is to “improve access and quality of care in regions that are underserved.”

The city of Greece is a decade removed from the country’s plunge into economic and social calamity over public debts that have now rendered much of the healthcare system outside of Athens either inadequate or obsolete.

Ariel view of SNF University Pediatric Hospital of Thessaloniki. Image render courtesy Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

The Pritzker-winning architect and his firm have been tasked with the design and delivery of new facilities in Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta. The hospital in Thes...

New WELL Performance Rating aims to recognize smart, healthy buildings

2022-04-15T15:29:00-04:00

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has announced the launch of the WELL Performance Rating, a new rating that recognizes building owners and operators for achieving excellence in healthy building performance that enhances the well-being of their inhabitants.

The rating was developed in collaboration with industry leaders in smart building technologies and with input from IWBI Performance Advisory, WELL Performance Testing Organizations (PTOs), and WELL Enterprise Providers (EPs). It provides a roadmap for organizations to demonstrate excellence in occupant experience and building performance across key indoor environmental quality indicators related to air quality, water quality, thermal comfort, acoustics, and lighting.

With this rating, organizations can now gather intelligence to develop better business performance through the use of sensor networks, onsite tests, and surveys that assess employee perceptions of their health, well-being, and performance while in th...

A children's mental health facility in Melbourne designed for a new health care typology

2022-03-29T14:58:00-04:00

Kerstin Thompson Architects and Bloxas have “invented” a new health care typology in their design for a children’s mental health facility in Melbourne’s north. The $7.3 million Statewide Child and Family Centre in Macleod will provide mental health services for children aged up to 11 who have experienced negative or traumatic events.

According to Kerstin Thompson and Bloxas principal Anthony Clarke, their design is based on the innovative care model developed by clinicians at Melbourne’s Austin Health. The main challenge for the architects was creating both a residential atmosphere and environment where children felt they have instrumentality and choice. They also wanted to break down the dichotomous patient-clinical dynamic of the setting. The team, thus, explored a number of different types of children’s spaces, such as childcare centers, children's libraries, and Maggie's Centers, which provide support for cancer patients.

Specific features in this new type of facility include the separation of therapy-focused areas from other spaces reserved for other activities, such as play areas, for the purpose of ridding confusion between positive and negative spatial association. Transition zones were also added, allowing individual decision-making to occur. In addition, garden spaces are present in all of the key spa...

New York City lawmakers put pressure on Mayor Adams to double investment in parks

2022-03-16T14:53:00-04:00

Local lawmakers are putting pressure on Mayor Eric Adams to fulfill his campaign promise to make New York City greener by committing more cash to the parks department, something Adams did not follow through with in his preliminary budget. On Monday in Flushing Meadows, members of the City Council and environmental stakeholders called for a $1 billion investment in annual maintenance for New York City parks as part of a five-point plan for improving parks and access to green spaces.

This commitment means that the city would allocate 1% of its budget towards the parks department, which NYC Mayor Eric Adams promised during his campaign. However, in his first preliminary budget proposal, Adams only set aside about $500 million towards parks.

Today we unveiled about 5 point plan for parks across our city. We need to immediately invest more in our existing parks, and create new public, green, restorative spaces for all New Yorkers. pic.twitter.com/zmCnWgjYmd
— Shekar Krishnan (@voteshekar) March 14, 2022

Adams’ vague status on New York’s parks department has seen the unification of the city’s borough presidents, who are calling for the planting of one million new trees by 2030. This is one of the components of the five-point plan, with others including providing waterfront access to all, upgrading playgrounds, parks, and schoolyards across all of New York City, and the creation of a Parks Construction Authority with the aim of building new parks. Councilm...

New York City borough presidents unite calling for a million trees

2022-02-25T15:38:00-05:00

When Mayor Eric Adams named a commissioner last week to oversee New York’s parks department, he spoke of how important the city’s green spaces were for recreation and contemplation, especially during the pandemic. But he also acknowledged having no particular agenda or master plan for the more than 30,000 acres of parkland under his control.

In response, all five of New York’s borough presidents have come together calling for Mayor Adams to plant a million new trees by 2030, reviving former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Million Trees NYC initiative. In addition, they also asked Adams to honor his campaign pledge to allocate 1 percent of the city’s budget towards the parks department.

According to environmental nonprofit Nature Conservancy, only about 22 percent of the city is covered by tree canopy, with approximately 7 million trees for its 8.8 million residents. And, while about 650,000 trees line the streets, however, like parks, they aren’t evenly distributed. Low-income New Yorkers and communities of color have significantly less access to available green space than white and wealthy areas. The conservancy predicts that New York could accommodate 250,000 more street trees.

New study reveals that pandemic-related absences cost employers nearly $1 billion per week

2022-01-13T14:52:00-05:00

In the last 22 months, workers' pandemic-related absences have cost employers more than $78.4 billion — nearly $1 billion each week — according to a Dec. 20 analysis from the Integrated Benefits Institute.

The Integrated Benefits Institute used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics along with its own dataset to analyze disability wage payments, state disability insurance, sick leave wages, and employee benefits for its calculation. The states of California, Texas, New York, along with the metropolitan areas of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago exhibited the highest lost work time.

Construction Dive notes that many costs due to the pandemic lie in more intangible areas that aren’t as easy to track. This includes productivity issues due to increased levels of stress, which can take away time spent on work. One suggestion made is for employers to emphasize and implement preventative mental health care in order to assist individuals before conditions become severe.

Building the infrastructure of mass Covid-19 vaccination

2021-01-26T14:45:00-05:00

More than 50 countries are racing to vaccinate their populations to fend off the rising death toll of a third wave of infections. To supplement the existing network of hospitals, medical clinics, pharmacies and other healthcare facilities, many are establishing mass vaccination sites capable of processing crowds — often sports arenas, convention centers and stadiums, but also parking lots and deserted shopping malls.

Bloomberg CityLab takes a look at how large sports, cultural, and civic facilities are being converted into mass vaccination sites in cities around the world.

'Healthy buildings' rise amid COVID-19, suggesting a healthier future

2020-12-16T17:40:00-05:00

...architects have been working with the International WELL Building Institute, an organization that’s developing standards for healthy buildings and is now run by Hodgdon. Since the pandemic, the Institute has been registering more than a million square feet of real estate a day in its certification program, putting buildings on the path to wellness.

A new article by WIRED's Sonner Kehrt explores the long term effects of 'healthy' design. "Over the past several months, the Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a surge of interest in the role that indoor environments—where we spend 90 percent of our time, even in a normal year—play in our health," writes Kerht. "Suddenly, developers and CEOs are realizing that incorporating health concerns in a building’s design isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity," she continues.

The piece goes into the long-term benefits of the new interest in safer buildings, the importance of interior environments on mental health, and some remarks from a handful of architects working towards these goals.

Construction workers most affected by Covid-19, study finds

2020-12-15T14:13:00-05:00

A new study tracking the results of more than 730,000 COVID-19 tests found that construction workers had the highest positivity rates for asymptomatic cases of any occupation, including healthcare staff, first responders, correctional personnel, elderly care workers, grocery store workers and food service employees.

Access the complete study High Frequency and Prevalence of Community-Based Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection here.

USGBC launches new indoor environmental quality guidance in response to COVID-19

2020-06-09T16:08:00-04:00

As the nationwide effort to reopen American businesses, universities, and other facilities gets underway, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has launched a new set of guidelines and metrics for ensuring that these re-opening activities "leverage LEED" expertise to "support buildings and communities in a post-pandemic world."

According to USGBC, "The strategy is guided by the idea that prioritizing the health of people, communities and the planet is the fastest way to rebuild a healthier, more sustainable economy."

As part of the group's new "economic recovery strategy" guidance for post-COVID-19 re-occupation, USGBC offers four new LEED credits tied to retrofitting existing spaces for post-pandemic use and adaptation.

The credits touch on the topics of cleaning and disinfecting, indoor air quality, water systems, and general re-occupancy.

The effect of epidemics on architecture and design

2020-03-18T18:32:00-04:00

Light, air, and hygiene [...] were the best treatment for tuberculosis at the time. The design and construction of specialized sanatoria coincided with the advent of Modernism. Architectural elements like flat roofs, terraces and balconies, and white- or light-painted rooms spread across Europe. Not unlike the sanatorium, the new architecture was intended to cure the perceived physical, nervous, and moral ailments brought on by crowded cities.

The collective desire to cure and prevent the seemingly unstoppable tuberculosis epidemic through deliberate design choices had given tremendous momentum to a revolutionary movement in our fairly recent architectural past: Modernism.

Staircase inside Alvar Aalto's Paimio Sanatorium. Photo courtesy Flickr user www.moritzbernoully.com.

It is too early to say which, or if any, lasting effect the developing COVID-19 health crisis will leave on design and architecture. The cultural, and mainly technological, impact already caused by the sudden global switch to remote working and teaching will likely only be the first sign of irreversible change requiring continuing solutions and adjustments in years to come.

Read more on the subject of health-centered design as guiding factors in the evolution of modernist architecture in Archinect's review of the book X-Ray Architecture by Beatriz Colomina.

As California's wildfires become increasingly urban, concerns over airborne health risks grow 'worrisome'

2019-11-07T15:31:00-05:00

The samples he collects will help scientists better understand how the massive increase in seasonal wildfires burning through residential areas might be affecting our health. Where smoke once contained the remnants of only biomass (trees and other organic matter), fires are now burning up homes—structures that contain thousands of synthetic chemicals, paints, plastics, and metals that smolder and combust into tiny particles.

Exercise parks for senior citizens are popping up in cities worldwide

2019-11-04T15:42:00-05:00

[A]lthough culture does play a role, it is park location, design and amenities that most influence use among senior citizens. “Often older adults feel not welcome in parks that are primarily designed for younger populations,” [Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning at UCLA] says. “In other words, parks are not psychologically accessible to them.”

Inspired by the exercise “playgrounds” for senior citizens that are common in China, similar parks are being designed in cities worldwide. The article takes a look at the specific design elements that are needed to make these parks appealing to older adults, as well as why these parks should be more of a priority in urban design.

How an obsession with illness shaped modern architecture, according to Beatriz Colomina

2019-05-06T18:49:00-04:00

Clean lines, white surfaces and indoor-outdoor living epitomise early modern architecture. Contrary to received wisdom, to Colomina this is less a machine aesthetic than a hospital aesthetic. Through the lens of disease, nervous disorders, sexuality and self-expression, Colomina’s fascinating interpretation of modern architecture suggests the motivating factors behind the architectural revolution were the need for health and cleanliness, hygiene and smooth, calming surfaces.

In light of her recently published book X-Ray Architecture, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina talks about the history of how illnesses shaped the clean aesthetics of 20th-century modern architecture.

‘‘In the 20th century architects from Le Corbusier to Mies van der Rohe to Alvar Aalto are all obsessed with illnesses,’’ Colomina tells The Sydney Morning Herald. ‘‘Corb says the old city has to be destroyed and a new architecture should emerge because it produces tuberculosis.’’

As Brutalism gains new popularity, what are the mental health consequences of concrete architecture?

2019-03-06T16:17:00-05:00

Antipathy to the “concrete jungle” is rooted in the assumption that concrete-heavy environments are by nature detrimental to psychological health. One study of more than 4 million Swedes, published in 2004 in the British Journal of Psychiatry, seemed to suggest that moving from a rural to an urban environment had a detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health.

"Has the material been made a bogeyman for the urban environment – assumed to be harsh and unforgiving, rather than liberating and inclusive – when many of the problems it seems to embody are more directly related to how inequality and segregation manifest in cities?," writes Lynsey Hanley for the excellent Guardian concrete week series.

Snøhetta's Outdoor Care Retreats offer respite to patients at Norway's largest hospitals

2019-01-07T19:19:00-05:00

Hidden in lush forests that are within walking distance from two of Norway’s largest hospitals, the Outdoor Care Retreat is a group of secluded wooden cabins that offer patients a relaxing space to enjoy the therapeutic benefits of nature. Designed by Snøhetta on behalf of the Friluftssykehuset Foundation, the cabins let patients get a break from rigorous treatment routines. Plus, a change in environment can help long-term hospitalization feel a little more manageable.

The Friluftssykehuset Foundation initiated the Outdoor Care Retreat project and developed it with the Oslo University Hospital's Department of Psychosomatics and CL-Child Psychiatry and Snøhetta. The Norwegian Minister of Health and Care Services opened the first Outdoor Care Retreat at the Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet last June. A week later, another Outdoor Care Retreat opened near the Sørlandet Hospital Kristiansand in southern Norway.

Outdoor Care Retreat in Kristiansand. Photo © Ivar Kvaal.

Outdoor Car...

Pritzker Prize laureate Balkrishna Doshi's plea for a Biological City

2018-12-10T15:29:00-05:00

Unfortunately, we have since forgotten this soulful approach to architecture and design, following instead the prevailing planning model of big budgets, large-scale structures and isolated behaviors. Consequently, our habitations have become fragmented and we fail to see the city’s infrastructure and life in an integrated way.

Celebrated Indian architect and 2018 Pritzker Prize laureate, Balkrishna Doshi, pens a passionate NYT opinion piece in which he calls for a renewed harmony of human settlements with nature rather than pursuing more resource-consuming megastructures.

The Balkrishna Doshi-designed Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, 1977. Photo: Sanyam Bahga/Flickr

"In addition to such quietude, other aesthetic measures of settlements include grace, love, compassion and humility," Doshi writes. "To animate a settlement one must create humble and tender connections, which encourage humans to come together and to share and to feel themselves a part of a larger order, a part of Mother Earth."

New Yorkers with elevator phobia share how they've coped with their lifelong fear

2018-10-05T18:26:00-04:00

The elevator-phobic people of New York City are almost our own subculture [...] I’ve fantasized at times about a kind of utopia: a gleaming glass city free of elevators. But for now I, just like Gabriella and Rachel and Kevin and Nakia, still live in New York, and still constantly have to force myself to enter slim or squat boxes of despair. Why haven’t we left? What strange fate have we dealt ourselves, to live in a place full of hellscapes.

Having a deeply ingrained fear of elevators while living in a vertical landscape like New York City — which has over 60,000 elevators, by the way — isn't easy for some folks, like writer Amos Barshad. He and other fellow New Yorkers he interviews talk about how their phobia began, their search for answers to why they still have this fear, and how they manage it in their everyday lives.

What You Don’t See

2018-09-18T19:06:00-04:00

Follow the intricate supply chains of architecture and you’ll find not just product manufacturers but also environmental polluters. Keep going and you’ll find as well the elusive networks of political influence that are underwritten by the billion-dollar construction industry.

In "What You Don't See," Brent Sturlaugson examines the supply chains of architecture to make the case that designers must expand their frameworks of action and responsibility for thinking about sustainability.

Unraveling the networks of materials, energy, power, and money that must be activated to produce a piece of plywood, Sturlaugson argues that "any full accounting of environmental, economic, or social sustainability has got to consider not merely individual buildings and sites but also the intricate product and energy supply chains that are crucial to their construction."

People volunteer to “work” in these fake offices to help Well Living Lab make future building design healthier

2018-07-18T19:26:00-04:00

When complete, the 25,000 sq ft Well Living Lab, the first scientific research centre in Asia to focus on the indoor environment, will feature a range of simulated homes and offices. The facility will make small variations to the environment – in lighting, air quality and noise levels, for example – and monitor how they affect workers’ health, happiness and productivity. The research findings will be used to change the way future buildings are designed.

Getting a headache from staring at all those buildings? This study explains why

2018-07-09T14:17:00-04:00

Because the repetitive patterns of urban architecture break the rule of nature, it is more difficult for the human brain to process them efficiently. [...] over the last 100 years, the design of buildings has been departing further and further from the rule of nature; more and more stripes appear decade by decade, making the buildings less and less comfortable to look at.

How social equality is linked to health, as manifested in the built environment

2017-08-29T14:13:00-04:00

Residents of the outer suburbs tend to travel much longer distances between home, work and the services they need daily. Getting around necessarily defaults to the car, which has serious long-term implications for health. Driving is particularly associated with extended sitting in a confined space and, as a result, not getting enough exercise each day. When poorer communities are located in areas of lesser amenity due to lower housing costs, this exacerbates their health problems.

The close correlation between socioeconomic status and health has long been out of question. The built environment and the environmental context serve as direct social determinants of health.

Due to lower housing costs, poorer communities are often restricted to residing in areas of lesser amenity that exacerbate the obstacles to mental and physical well-being—lack of quality services and infrastructure, scarcity of green space and long work commutes challenge health. Additionally, poor building design and construction, and the excessive noise that it causes, can significantly contribute to stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and sometimes even neighbor conflict and violence. What might appear as light threats, such as sleep deprivation which is linked to obesity, serve as risk factors for many chronic diseases.

While high-density living is increasingly trumpeted as “healthy,” health and well-being of poor communities in high-rise housing heavily depends on the specifics—geographic...

The new exhibition at the National Building Museum, 'Architecture of an Asylum', explores the links between mental health and architecture

2017-07-10T17:58:00-04:00

Dix made sure the hospital that became St. Elizabeths in 1916 had heat, tall arched windows and screened sleeping porches where patients could catch summer breezes. Photos, models and floor plans included in the museum exhibit show handsome brick buildings — with towers, high ceilings, open space and river views.

Washington's National Building Museum features an exhibit that tells the story of architecture of St. Elizabeths or, as originally named upon its opening in 1855, the Government Hospital for the Insane.

Started by Dorothea Dix, the 19th century reformer who fought for the facility to represent healthier standards for mental health treatment, the history of the federally-operated hospital bears traces of America's changing healthcare system, evolving theories of how to care for the mentally ill, as well as the later reconfiguration of the campus as a federal workplace and mixed-use urban development.

The porches of the 1890s Allison Buildings, shown above in 1910, were later enclosed to provide more space for patient beds. Image courtesy of National Building Museum

"Some things cannot be cured," says Denise Everson, an architect in the D.C. area who specializes in design and health. "But I think humane treatment — I think, creative treatment — is where we should go as a community, as...

Tinkering connections between architecture and neuroscience

2017-06-06T15:54:00-04:00

The importance of urban design goes far beyond feel-good aesthetics. A number of studies have shown that growing up in a city doubles the chances of someone developing schizophrenia, and increases the risk for other mental disorders such as depression and chronic anxiety.

While it might appear as common intuitive knowledge, humans are strongly influenced by their context. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in studies on the connection between neuroscience and architecture.

Last month, London's Conscious Cities Conference brought together architects, designers, engineers, neuroscientists and psychologists to encourage more multidisciplinary engagement. Some of the recent psychological studies focus on defining a stimulating space through the use of wearable devices that monitor skin conductance, various apps, VR and EEG headsets for either visualizing or measuring brain's activity and mental states. Other findings include data on the impact of building facades on our moods, green space on our health, and urban environments on our social interactions.

Analyzing the ways in which the built environment affects our brains through evidence-based research can grant architects the insight needed for making healthier and more socially-consc...

Perkins+Will release white paper that recommends avoiding antimicrobial products in buildings

2017-03-02T13:12:00-05:00

Perkins+Will have released a white paper that recommends avoiding including antimicrobial products in buildings. “Antimicrobial building products marketed as ‘healthy’ or beneficial to human health contain ingredients that may have adverse environmental or human health impacts, and alternative products should be considered whenever possible,” it states.

According to their research, antimicrobial products such as paints, door handles, flooring and kitchen countertops could enable the proliferation of so-called 'super bugs', or antibiotic-resistance microbes. They could also contaminate aquatic ecosystems and sometimes include suspected carcinogens such as formaldehyde. Their research echoes the position of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

From 1994 to 2014 the amount of antimicrobial consumer products in the market has sky-rocketed. Sometimes manufacturers add antimicrobial ingredients to serve as preservatives, while still...

Golden Gate Bridge needs additional $124M to build suicide barrier

2016-10-04T14:09:00-04:00

Roughly 25 people each year jump to their deaths from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, which prompted city leaders to authorize a plan to erect a kind of suicide-prevention stainless steel cable netting twenty feet below the bridge's deck. The netting, which is painted gray to blend in with the water below, has worked wonders on other suicide-prone perches, including the Prince Edward Viaduct. As Global Construction Review reports, the problem for the Golden Gate is that the bids for the construction have come in about $100 million more than the city anticipated (plus a +/- $20 million contingency fund). The project is on hold until January 9th to allow the city to hustle up the additional funding.

Other notable San Francisco design news:

Watch: new documentary tells the story behind MASS Design Group's cholera clinic in Haiti

2016-09-20T14:24:00-04:00

Just nine months after a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, killing hundreds of thousands of people, a cholera epidemic broke out. While it became clear shortly after that the epidemic began with U.N. peacekeepers, who had been active in Haiti since 2004 and brought the disease from Nepal, the U.N. only just recently took formal responsibility. With overwhelming rebuilding efforts and damaged infrastructure throughout the country, Haiti was made even more vulnerable, and the disease spread through consumption of tainted water and food.

To attend to the sick population, Haitian infectious disease specialist Dr. Jean-William Pape and his organization, Les Centres GHESKIO, set up and ran temporary treatment sites, but after two years, when the epidemic didn’t seem to be shrinking back, Dr. Pape realized that unsanitary waste collection practices in the treatment centers were contaminating the groundwater, reintroducing the disease into the population.

So to cut off the cycle of r...