Five Questions To Ask Designers During Coronavirus
How might Coronavirus impact how we design?
Written By Nick Maffey
COVID-19 has exposed large gaps in our medical industry from the lack of capacity at our hospitals to the lack of necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals. As designers, we must use this as an opportunity to innovate. It is important that we begin to ask large questions now so we can be more prepared for the future. Here are five questions to ask yourself as a designer during the Coronavirus pandemic:
01 | How can we use design to better cope with pandemics in the future?
Will everyone be able to design and print their own masks at home? Will things like telemedicine become the new normal? Will you be able to see your doctor using VR? How can we design for rapid expansion?
02 | How can we transform hospitals to handle large influxes of infectious disease patients?
In an article from The Washington Post, Pandemics spread in hospitals. Changes in design and protocols can save lives. , author Emily Anthes highlights the issue that hospitals often become hot spots for the spread of infectious diseases. She discusses the need for changes in simple things like placing hand sanitizer in easier to access locations as well as more complex solutions such as creating separate entrances and hallways to minimize the spread. How will the layout of hospitals change to mitigate potential risks in the future?
03 | Will hospitals of tomorrow be somehow expandable or adaptable?
The Italian architect Carlo Ratti is developing CURA (Connected Unit for Respiratory Ailments) which a system that uses shipping containers outfitted as hospital rooms to expand the capacity at hospitals. Will hospital Pods become more prevalent? How can we better design hospitals to expand?
04 | How do we design medical devices that are inexpensive and easily produced domestically?
Can we repurpose existing devices to work in new ways? Scuba equipment, combined with new 3D printed components has been used in Italy in the absence of sufficient ventilator units. Can we design PPE to be reusable to diminish the cost and limit waste?
05 | Should their be less secrecy and more open communication of designs when it comes to life saving devices like ventilators?
More open communication can lead to rapid innovation in this space. Medtronic recently released specifications for their Ventilators, will this inspire other companies to do the same? Companies like Ford and GM have retooled assembly lines to produce ventilators. How can we design products to be more open source?
Having an ongoing dialogue about issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic is extremely important in the process of finding meaningful solutions in the future. It is important to ask as many questions during this time as we can. As designers, we are in an extremely unique position to have a direct impact on the preparedness of our world to not only fighting future pandemics but also preventing them. Keep asking questions, keep searching for solutions, innovate and overcome.