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.  

“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 questions about our dependence on mechanical systems and the lack of access to fresh, natural air,” he wrote. “Why are so many buildings filled with inoperable windows? How did we not foresee the dangers of creating an airtight seal around entire city blocks? Is it really acceptable that our built surroundings are entirely dependent on evermore complex mechanical systems that pollute the environment and, if they should fail, prevent us from breathing?”