Archinect - News

Studio Libeskind completes new Maggie's Centre design in London

2024-02-05T18:57:00-05:00

Studio Libeskind has completed work on its design for a new Maggie’s Centre cancer treatment facility at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

The 4,886-square-foot design follows well-known contributions from Foster + Partners, Steven Holl, and Heatherwick Studio as an example of its client’s mission to provide patients with world-class settings in which to receive their care. The project is now the 24th Maggie’s Centre completed in the UK since 1996.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

The studio says its design is arranged for the free-flowing movement of patients and their caretakers while giving equal consideration to the needs for both privacy and socialization.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

In terms of building form, the Centre is curvilinear in contrast with the surrounding brick-and-mortar buildings on the NHS campus. The design was realized on a small plot that was once a parking lot. As such, its volume expands upwards from the ground floor clad in weathered timber panels and sheathed in glaz...

Foster + Partners and CannonDesign lead reimagination of Mayo Clinic campus in Minnesota

2023-11-30T11:53:00-05:00

A team comprising Foster + Partners, CannonDesign, and Gilbane Building Company has designed a major healthcare addition to Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota. The project, titled 'Bold. Forward. Unbound. in Rochester' features two new high-rise clinical buildings at the center of the campus.

The new buildings measure nine stories to reach a height of 221 feet, with the potential to expand to 420 feet over time. A new central point of arrival is created by the buildings, with north and south drop-offs converging at a unified main entrance.

Above the central arrival point, a sky bridge horizontally links the two new buildings with the existing Gonda Building to improve wayfinding and circulation. The sky bridge is also part of a double-height ‘social ame...

Mæ's John Morden Centre wins the 2023 RIBA Stirling Prize

2023-10-19T19:57:00-04:00

The design for the John Morden Centre in Blackheath, London, by Mæ has just been announced as the winner of the 2023 Stirling Prize by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

The country’s new ‘Best New Building’ honor was bestowed to the 22-year-old firm’s redesign of the elder care facility located on the site of Grade I-listed Morden College, the original design for which dates to the 1690s and has been attributed to the period’s most significant architect, Sir Christopher Wren.

Photo: Jim Stephenson

The scope of the project involved creating a more sociable, physically active, and less isolating atmosphere in which residents can age in place gracefully. With dramatic effect, the overhaul consolidates formerly diffuse functions at the non-profit care facility into a series of brick pavilions that are connected by the construction of a central timber colonnade.

Photo: Jim Stephenson

A steeply pitched roofline gives the structure an austere but still inviting character. I...

Foster + Partners releases Ellison Institute of Technology campus designs in Oxford

2023-10-16T17:09:00-04:00

Foster + Partners has unveiled renderings for a new scientific research and development facility design located in Oxford, UK.

The project to establish a new home for the eight-year-old Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) comprises a 30,000-square-meter (323,000-square-foot) central research laboratory, oncological wellness institute, and restoration of existing buildings. Its creation positions the institute, which also operates out of Los Angeles, for better collaborations with Oxford University and the city’s biotech and technology industries. The EIT says it will also aid with the launch of its new Ellison Scholars program, which was initiated earlier this year.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

The scope of its design entails connecting the restored single-volume Littlemore House to new pavilions located at the easternmost edge of the site in order to create a larger C-shape footprint surrounding a landscaped courtyard that’s built over a sunken 200-seat auditorium and culminat...

Arquitectonica reveals designs for new $1 billion mixed-use project in Miami's Medical District

2023-09-26T19:36:00-04:00

Arquitectonica has been selected as the master planners and designers of a new $1 billion mixed-use healthcare development in Miami, the firm announced via a press release today.

Site preparations will begin this year on the seven-acre Highland Park Miami development in the city’s Medical District. The plan for clients The Allen Morris Company and Black Salmon will increase the district’s total area by approximately ten percent, transforming it into the second largest such development in the country.

Rendering courtesy Arquitectonica

Arquitectonica says the scheme will also include space for 1,000 residential units delivered by Oppenheim Architecture in addition to 500,000 square feet of medical offices and a new 150-room hotel. Local firm Naturalficial will also deliver a landscaped corridor at a previously underutilized area abutting the site, which is located within 400 feet of the nearest Metrorail station.

Rendering courtesy Arquitectonica

“With Highland Park, we’re creating a n...

3XN shares new Copenhagen Children's Hospital images ahead of 2026 opening

2023-08-16T13:57:00-04:00

3XN has shared photos of their nearly complete Copenhagen Children’s Hospital project in the Danish capital.

Spanning 58,000 square meters (about 624,300 square feet), the design will yield a total of 219 beds for children, teens, and pregnant women, 15 operating rooms, 57 ambulatory care suites for children and adolescents, another 30 for adults, 14 delivery rooms, and a nuclear diagnostics center.

Once it opens early next year, the hospital will have a capacity for 900 persons in addition to 1,200 staff. The firm says its design is meant to harness the power of play as a palliative measure and will be completed at a cost of $350 million for its client, the Capital Region of Denmark.

Image: 3XN

Formed by two asterisk-shaped volumes meant to evoke the image of a pair of widespread hands connected together at the wrist plate, the bays inside the individual "fingers" in the design are bookended by winter gardens at the tips and share a central core reserved for family lounge...

Payette founder Tom Payette has passed away aged 90

2022-11-18T14:29:00-05:00

A leading figure in the architecture industry is being mourned after Payette announced the passing of its founder Tom Payette last week at the age of 90.

Payette was considered an innovator in the design of healthcare facilities and scientific high-ed buildings, garnering a consistent stream of AIA national awards and the admiration of the hundreds of other practitioners he came to collaborate with on similar projects via the entity that became his eponymous firm.

“Tom was courageous, no challenge was unachievable, and no disappointment could phase him,” his colleague and current Payette President Kevin Sullivan remembered. “He encouraged us to do remarkable things, always looking forward, never dwelling on the past and always encouraging us to do great design, but most importantly, never allowing us to forget the importance of family and maintaining a life beyond architecture.”

Payette earned his b...

CannonDesign and Foster + Partners picked to design Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center expansion in NYC

2022-11-17T14:04:00-05:00

A joint team of CannonDesign and Foster + Partners has been selected to design a new high-rise pavilion for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan’s Midtown East neighborhood.

Design details are still being finalized, but the structure will stand a minimum of 30 stories in height and leverage Cannon’s expertise in modular construction techniques in order to deliver a “pioneering medical facility that will be at the forefront of innovation and patient care.” The project is said to help meet MSK’s “evolving cancer care needs over the next century” and add a more modern, 200-bed facility connected to the institution’s main building at the corner of E. 66th Street and York Avenue.

Foster + Partners explains: “The Pavilion will create incredible human experiences within and beyond the Pavilion walls for patients, their families, and staff. The building will help MSK attract and retain the very best cancer clinicians, researchers, and staff in the world.”

Related on Archinect...

NYC announces $1.6 billion life sciences campus development in Manhattan

2022-10-18T17:29:00-04:00

New York City has announced its plans for a new $1.6 billion life sciences campus to be located on the east side of Manhattan and administered in partnership with the City University of New York (CUNY).

SOM has been attached as the project lead for the SPARC Kips Bay development, which will transform the Brookdale Campus of Hunter College into a 1.5-million-square foot center for research, entrepreneurship, and education geared at local economic benefits and training young New Yorkers for careers in tech and the health sciences.

According to a press release, the project’s scope includes:

NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue ambulatory care center.
NYC Health + Hospitals simulation training center.
DOE high school with a special focus on preparations for healthcare and other STEM careers.
A new Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) Forensic Pathology Center that will be a "nation-leading training facility for forensic pathologists."
Commercial office and laboratory space for the life scienc...

MASS Design founder Michael Murphy announces he is stepping down, will join the faculty at Georgia Tech

2022-10-10T11:30:00-04:00

MASS Design Group President and co-founder Michael Murphy has announced he will be stepping down from his post after 15 years to pursue new academic and professional initiatives in a move announced on Friday.

The announcement stated that MASS will continue under the leadership of Senior Principals and Managing Directors Christian Benimana and Patricia Gruits and Founding Principal and Chief Design Officer Alan Ricks. Murphy will now join the faculty at Georgia Tech as its new Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair.

The recent AIA Firm Award winners have become recognized throughout the design community for their commitment to restorative social justice projects and three core guiding principles of beauty, dignity, and the increased flow of natural air best exemplified in their designs for the Butaro District Hospital and subsequent commissions across Rwanda and the United States.

Previously on Archinect: new documentary tells the story behind MASS Design Group's cholera clinic ...

Liv-Connected launches a modular approach to home design and a solution to the growing housing shortage

2022-08-22T16:09:00-04:00

New York startup Liv-Connected has released a modular approach to housing that tackles the homebuilding market's material and skilled labor shortages and limited housing inventory.

Cofounded by architects Jordan Rogove, Wayne Norbeck, Joe Wheeler, and healthcare professional Dr. Herb Rogove in 2019 (Jordan Rogove and Wayne Norbeck are also cofounders of NYC-based architecture firm DXA Studio), the endeavor aimed to seek a solution to disaster-relief housing that embodied a sense of permanence and resulted in an affordable, sustainable, and high-quality, health-centered solution to homebuilding.

Image courtesy of Liv-Connected.

The emergence of Liv-Connected reflects the commitment to homeowners' health and wellness and their team of architects and healthcare providers. "We started with the assumption that disaster housing could be so thoughtful that it might become permanent," shared Norbeck during a conversation with Forbes' Jennifer Castenson. "We were interested in the possibil...

OMA and Buro Happold reveal new video of modular hospital prototype

2022-04-12T09:00:00-04:00

One of the most promising recent healthcare infrastructure concepts has engendered an offshoot project that looks to expand on its original framework design.

As a product of the research done for their collaboration on the Al Daayan Health District Master Plan in Doha, OMA and Buro Happold have created a prototype for a low-rise hospital structure commissioned by the Hamad Medical Corporation.

Previously on Archinect: OMA and Buro Happold reveal designs for the Al Daayan Health District in Doha

Image © HMC

The prototype appears to consist of similar two-story-high modular units that can be adapted and reconfigured to allow for maximal variation and minimal costs. Scalable, self-sufficient, and built using a considerable amount of 3D printing technology, the design is a sustainable refresh to the important typology and hopes to see further use in other climates once the Qatari concept catches on.

Image © HMC

“Medical technology is advancing exponentially, leaving hospitals to...

Designing healthier spaces through data: How one firm uses spatial analytics to shape new job opportunities for architects

2022-03-02T09:06:00-05:00

Traditional architecture firms aren't the only viable employers worth exploring as designers and architects continue to navigate the job market. New and exciting job opportunities with unique architecture adjacent practices continue to emerge with businesses seeking the expertise of individuals with architecture backgrounds. Pair this with advances in AR/VR, visualization modeling, and data analytics architects are finding new ways to approach healthcare, housing, and commercial projects.

Take the Cambridge-based spatial analytics company Spatio Metrics for example. Its founders, Sonal Singh and Jim Peraino, have combined their business, wellness, and architecture backgrounds to develop a company that "helps architects and their clients analyze floor plans and bridge the gap between design, data, and human performance."

Image courtesy of Spatio Metrics.

Both MIT graduates, the duo founded their company in 2019 and has gained attention as a startup that uses spatial analytics, visuali...

Michael Graves Design teams up with CVS to create a more stylish and accessible line of home health care products

2022-02-22T13:26:00-05:00

CVS Pharmacy and Michael Graves Design are now teaming up on a direct-to-market line of home health care products that will build on the legacy of inclusive design beget by its namesake in the inspiring last decade of his life and career.

The initial round of products focuses on bathroom safety and mobility aids and includes a foldable cane, travel walker, shower chair, 3-in-1 commode, and raised toilet seats each based around philosophies of the Design for All movement which the architect helped create.

CVS Health Take Along Folding Cane. Image courtesy Michael Graves Design.

In order to get the best possible input and consumer feedback from users of the products and their caregivers, the firm undertook a comprehensive ethnography study along the east coast that provided extremely valuable insights into a too-often overlooked area of home product design.

CVS Health Raised Toilet Seat. Image courtesy Michael Graves Design.

“This product actually gives people the feeling that, hey, so...

Kashef Chowdhury’s Friendship Hospital named 2021 World’s Best New Building by RIBA

2022-01-25T19:47:00-05:00

One of designer Kashef Chowdhury and URBANA’s superlative recent works has received a huge honor from the UK’s oldest architectural organization. The Royal Institute of British Architects has today announced the firm’s Friendship Hospital project in Bangladesh as the winner of the 2021 International Prize for the World’s Best New Building.

The rural hospital is one of several firm projects in the country commissioned by a nonprofit group called Friendship that looks to empower underdeveloped communities in different regions of the country through hands-on social innovation and collaboration. The hospital provides the village of Satkhira, which has been heavily impacted by rising sea levels related to climate change. The village has particularly bad agricultural problems related to the rising waters, which the project was also able to address through the introduction of a new stormwater drainage system that simultaneously produces valuable drinking water and serves in the much-neede...

MASS Design's Michael Murphy says we're failing to learn the epidemic design lessons Florence Nightingale provided 150 years ago

2021-12-29T16:39:00-05:00

At our peril, we have ignored Nightingale’s prescriptions. The history of the hospital contains clear lessons about the importance of air movement through buildings, the public health risks of poor design, and the dangers of technological reliance. Architecture professionals should look back to see what else has been forgotten or ignored in the race to merge art and technology. Whose lives might be at stake if they don’t?

Murphy is a principal at Boston-based MASS Design Group and the author of The Architecture of Health: Hospital Design and the Construction of Dignity, which accompanies the firm’s recent exhibition Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics on view at the Cooper Hewitt until February 23rd.

In it, Murphy argues that the COVID pandemic has affected a new paradigm in the ways architects and healthcare designers think about hospitals that are reliant on air, either cooled or circulated by mechanical systems, and failed in their attempts to mitigate the virus’ spread by fenestration that is now an impediment to the application of effective inpatient treatment.

Interior of MASS Design Group's Butaro Hospital in Ruhengeri, Rwanda. Photo: Iwan Baan.

“Like all crises that reveal cracks in the system, the pandemic has prompted a public reckoning with the role of buildings in shaping our health. Recent reporting is waking up to the crisis of breathability in buildings, raising questi...

A ‘hospital of the future’: Foster + Partners opens new medical school building at UPenn

2021-11-19T09:00:00-05:00

With the spiritual and material well-being of its next-generation patients in mind, the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine has opened an inpatient facility from Foster + Partners and others that is being heralded as a “hospital of the future.”

Located on Penn’s historic West Philadelphia campus, The Pavillion is the university’s answer to the growing body of scholarship that supports a patient-oriented approach to care that is embodied in its design and functionality.

“The new Pavilion is designed to completely redefine the future of healthcare,” Norman Foster said. “The building enables innovations that reflect University of Pennsylvania’s history of medical firsts, creating a truly flexible facility that molds itself to the needs of the patient. Responsive, adaptable and future-proof, it will allow the hospital to continue its crucial life-saving work and remain at the cutting edge of patient care.”

The University indeed h...

OMA and Buro Happold reveal designs for the Al Daayan Health District in Doha

2021-10-18T14:50:00-04:00

Final drafts for the joint OMA and Buro Happold-designed Al Daayan Health District are now available, showcasing a localized model of healthcare infrastructure that OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf hopes will be transplanted from Doha, Qatar to the rest of the world.

Image © OMA

The 1.3-million-square-meter (14-million-square-foot) facility will be completely self-sustaining thanks to onsite prefabrication, 3D printing, an agricultural element, and built-in solar farm.

Image © OMA

“Architects have long aimed to provide the hospital with a final solution. This proposal starts from the opposite end: viewing the hospital as the type of building that is forever under construction, as an organism for which space and time must be considered equally,” de Graaf said in a statement.

Image © OMA

The development is anchored by a two-story building that houses a teaching hospital, women’s and children’s hospitals, ambulatory care, and clinical facilities. The new hospital will have capacity for 1,400...

Adjaye Associates reveals designs for a massive new healthcare infrastructure project in Ghana

2021-08-26T14:09:00-04:00

As part of the architect’s ongoing commitment to his native country, David Adjaye has revealed designs for a massive new public infrastructure project that will provide over 100 new healthcare facilities to the people of Ghana.

Dubbed Agenda 111, the government-backed initiative will add 101 district hospitals as well as 10 new regional hospitals to the rapidly developing West African nation. The existing Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital will be provided with a much-needed restoration as well.

Courtesy Adjaye Associates

“By approaching the hospital as more than just a place for the provision of medical services, the design scheme aims to unlock the potential of this ambitious initiative by repositioning the hospital as a piece of community infrastructure that embodies sustainability, efficiency, and generously provides green spaces to facilitate wellness and healing,” the firm said in a statement.

Courtesy Adjaye Associates

Ghana’s infrastructure has been steadily improving since the...

SOM reveals plans for a new public health laboratory in Harlem

2021-07-23T18:26:00-04:00

If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that the health of Black and Hispanic communities is being systemically underserved in large part due to an infrastructure gap that has left both urban and rural parts of the country bereft of key resources in a time of crisis.

In keeping with this pressing need, SOM unveiled plans this week for the new New York City Public Health Laboratory in Harlem that will replace an existing facility in Kips Bay owned by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The new $400 million laboratory will host a range of services addressing both clinical and environmental concerns in an adaptive scheme that can change focus to ascendent public health concerns as they come along.

SOM’s state-of-art structure, which last month was honored by the Public Design Commission’s Award for Excellence, rises from a three-story masonry podium into a prominent cubic volume containing first essential functions as well as community-facing accomm...

Guangzhou to build huge quarantine facility in response to Delta variant

2021-07-02T17:58:00-04:00

The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is planning to build a 250,000-square-meter quarantine complex in response to the growing threat of highly transmissible Covid-19 mutations such as the Delta variant.

The announcement was made by Zhong Nanshan, one of China’s top epidemiologists, who played a leading role in tackling the SARS outbreak in 2003. According to Zhong, the complex would contain 5,000 isolated spaces for both international travelers and local residents from high-risk areas. According to The South China Morning Post, Zhong believes the quarantine complex is necessary as simply using hotels as quarantine sites would not be enough to halt the spread of the virus due to how much more transmissible the Delta variant is compared to previous ones.

“In the long term, Guangzhou and Shenzhen must build these kinds of facilities. Otherwise when there are lots of cases in the future and we have to quarantine them in hotels, it will affect the economy and we cannot isolate them ...

HENN and C.F. Møller Architects to design new geometric hospital in Munich

2021-02-16T17:56:00-05:00

HENN and C.F. Møller Architects win first prize for the new Grosshadern Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Clinic Campus, triumphing over 17 other planning teams who competed for the commission. The architects plan to transform the existing structures to create a green, connected, and friendly environment for medical care, research, and education.

"...we are looking forward to continuing our work in collaboration with HENN and the rest of the team as well as LMU to realize a new building and a campus which meet the structural demands and requirements of a university hospital of the future and at the same time enhance the urban image based on Healing Architecture principles and by putting people in the center," said Klavs Hyttel, Partner at C.F. Møller Architects, in a statement.

The new building comprises a total of six new clinical centers and is the largest public construction project in Bavaria since the hospital was built in the 1960s/70s. Three centers will be introduced: the c...

Demand for mental health facilities on the rise

2021-01-07T11:32:00-05:00

For decades, psychiatric hospitals were grim settings where patients were crowded into common rooms by day and dorms at night. But new research into the health effects of our surroundings is spurring the development of facilities that feel more residential, with welcoming entrances, smaller living units within larger buildings and a variety of gathering spaces.

Architecture and interior design firms have reported an increase in demand for mental health facilities, writes Jane Margolies for The New York Times. "At the design firm Architecture+ in Troy, N.Y., one or two major mental health facilities are typically in the pipeline, with total construction costs for those projects at about $250 million a year, said Francis Murdock Pitts, a principal and founding partner. Last year, the firm was working on 16 large mental health projects totaling about $1.9 billion," she explains.

Moreover, Margolies goes on to outline a case for an "evidence-based" design approach intended to "lessen patient and employee stress and aggression" in hopes of facilitating a more fruitful treatment process.

Get Lectured: The University of Kansas, Fall '20

2020-10-30T17:57:00-04:00

For the Fall The University of Kansas' School of Architecture & Design collaborated with the school's Institute for Health + Wellness Design to develop a series of lectures addressing health care design.

Archinect's ongoing Get Lectured series features each school's lecture series and their graphic design prowess with graphic lecture posters.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Their "Grand Rounds" lecture series dives into healthcare design during and after the current Covid-19 pandemic. KU Associate Professor of Architecture Keith Van de Riet shares, "Amid the pandemic, this timely lecture series brings academic and industry leaders currently navigating the technological, social and environmental factors that are forever changing architectural research and practice,

Broken into three discussions the first round of lectures took place on Sept 10th focusing on Covid/Care/Community. Speakers such as Ra...

Cushing Terrell develops approach for adapting standard hospital patient rooms into negative pressure zones

2020-07-09T12:21:00-04:00

Multidisciplinary design firm Cushing Terrell has developed a solution for air circulation and ventilation in patient and operating rooms to prevent the spread of infection. The solution, developed by the firm's mechanical engineering team, enables standard hospital patient rooms to be converted from positive pressure to negative pressure.

Mode 2: Normal operations / 50% outside air.

"Negative pressure rooms are designed to contain a patient’s breathing within the room, helping to prevent the spread of airborne viruses and disease. When a patient who is suspected to have, or is diagnosed with COVID-19, the availability of rooms like these becomes critical to protecting other patients in the hospital," said Shawn Murray, Principal at Cushing Terrell who leads the mechanical engineering group.

Mode 3: Normal operations / 100% outside air.

In developing this response to existing ventilation issues, the team began with collaborating with Billings Clinic facility staff to assist them in co...

HENN stacks hybrid medical programs in Guangzhou

2020-06-23T13:45:00-04:00

Located in the heart of Guangzhou's bio-tech district, HENN is developing the Medview Regenerative Medicine Innovation Center, a hybrid office and laboratory building set to function as a headquarters and communication center, as well as a development and production platform for start-ups.

The functional arrangement of the floors.

Interplay between one- and two-story spaces.

The company specializes in the development of high-precision products for the repair and reconstruction of human tissue, including cranial, jaw and facial tissue, as well as artificial skim, veins and ligaments. The institutions research has already been recognized worldwide, and it holds 130 patents.

Ground Floor Plan.

Floor Plan with Sky Gardens.

Floor Plan with Labs and Project Spaces.

HENN's design concept builds on an X-shaped form with three stacked zones separated by two "sky gardens." The first zone, located at ground level, is the public "testing" area and has its own laboratory. The second zone, at the mi...

Heatherwick Studios completes its first healthcare project, a mass timber Maggie's Centre in Leeds

2020-06-18T17:38:00-04:00

Recognized for its serene garden landscapes and eye-catching architectural approaches, Maggie's Centre facilities have become known the world over for the medical care and calming spaces these facilities offer individuals and their families affected by cancer.

Following the institution's dedication to providing environments of healing and tranquility, British designer Thomas Heatherwick has recently completed a new Maggie's Centre located within St. James' University Hospital, in Leeds, England. The project is his firm's first healthcare facility.

Founded by designer Maggie Keswick Jencks and her husband Charles Jencks, the facilities are a testament to how these two individuals dedicated their lives to creating a health-focused designs. Maggie's Centers have been established throughout the UK; TheMaggie's Centre in Leeds will be the organization's 26th facility.

Maggie's Centre L...

Healthcare construction workers need better training, researchers say

2020-04-30T14:21:00-04:00

After previous studies showed that patients in healthcare facilities were becoming ill due to dust generated by construction activity researchers from Washington State University and Clemson University asked 129 construction managers and field supervisors from the top healthcare contractors in the US for details on their training programs. According to Construction Dive's Kim Slowey, "only 52% of those surveyed said that owners of healthcare projects always or often required construction teams to receive training about how to perform work safely in or near occupied healthcare facilities, but 77% said that such training was typically required at the start of projects."

Previously on Archinect: Researchers urge additional construction safety measures during COVID-19

But, most of these training programs are geared toward upper management and often exclude or minimize the training time offered to workers and subcontractors who have closer contact with patients.

Dust and debris created by...

The architecture of virus transmission: Researchers propose new method for treating airborne pathogens

2020-03-27T15:59:00-04:00

The built environment often shapes the spread of disease. Many early cases of COVID-19, the 2019 novel coronavirus, centered on a seafood market in Wuhan City, China. Airports, hospitals and other gathering points can easily become sites of virus transmission.

But as the medical community grapples with the COVID-19 outbreak — which has ballooned from a few dozen cases in December to more than 120,000 worldwide — a group of researchers led by Hongxi Yin at Washington University in St. Louis is exploring whether using portable furnaces to sterilize contaminated building exhaust might help to stem the contagion.

Paramedics working to isolate patients infected with COVID-19. (Photo: Shutterstock)

“Since ancient times, humans have used fire to fight infectious disease,” said Yin, the InCEES associate professor in advanced building systems and architectural design in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Indeed, he pointed out, temporary treatment centers in Wuhan (which formally clo...

Dyson designs new ventilator for COVID-19 patients

2020-03-27T11:19:00-04:00

Dyson, the U.K. company known for its vacuums and air purifiers have designed a built a new ventilator in 10 days in collaboration with The Technology Partnership (TTP), reports Fast Company. The new machine has been dubbed "CoVent." It is a portable bed-mounted ventilator that can also run on battery power.

"Since I received a call from Boris Johnson ten days ago, we have refocused resources at Dyson, and worked with TTP, The Technology Partnership, to design and build an entirely new ventilator, The CoVent," said James Dyson in an internal company email retrieved by Fast Company. "I am proud of what Dyson engineers and our partners at TTP have achieved. I am eager to see this new device in production and in hospitals as soon as possible."

Dyson will produce 10,000 ventilators for the U.K. and will donate an additional 5,000, one thousand of which will go to the U.K. with the remaining distributed to other countries.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk said Wednesday that Tesla's factory i...