Shipping Container And Modular Humanitarian Architecture

Architects have used shipping containers to create everything from pop-up shops to co-working spaces to swaying student housing towers. But now, in the hands of an international network of architects and engineers, the humble corrugated steel box may have found one of its most valuable reincarnations ever, in the form of two-bed intensive care units for the coronavirus epidemic.

Here are a few innovative projects dealing with shipping container post-pandemic architecture:

Carlo Ratti’s Intensive Care Pod, Temporary Hospital in Turin, Italy

-Introduction to the project

Carlo Ratti’s CURA project’s initial unit was created at a makeshift hospital in Turin, northern Italy, one of the pandemic’s hardest-hit areas. The project’s first unit, an open-source design for emergency hospitals, is now under development in Milan, Italy. (1)

CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments), plug-in Intensive-Care Pods were created by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rota in collaboration with an international team of experts for the COVID-19 pandemic. (1)

CURA, a ready-to-use system that converts shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Pods to combat the coronavirus, consists of quickly erected, conveniently mobile, and safe modules. (1)

-The design of the project

The 20-foot intermodal containers are safe isolation wards with biocontainment and negative pressure, each containing all the medical equipment needed for two COVID-19 intensive-care patients, including ventilators and intravenous fluids, stands. Different combinations can be created by connecting the modules with an inflatable structure. (1)

Actually, “some pods can be placed in proximity to a hospital to expand the ICU capacity, while others could be used to create self-standing field hospitals of varying sizes”.

-Conculsion

CURA, a cure in Latin, can generate an easily deployed system, that can be immediately implemented around the world, promptly responding to the shortage of ICU space in hospitals and the spread of the disease.

Citizen Care Pod, Microsoft, Toronto

-Introduction to the project

The Citizen Care Pod is a new COVID-19 smart screening and testing programme that incorporates clever technology and a modular architecture. Citizen Care Pods Corporation led a multi-disciplinary team that includes Toronto-based WZMH Architects, PCL Construction, Insight Enterprises, and Microsoft to bring the project from concept to reality in less than a month. (2)

The initiative, which was created by WZMH Architects, PCL Construction, Insight Enterprises, and Microsoft, intends to produce a positive impact on the environment a “custom mobile testing unit to help reopen the economy”. (2)

In truth, the Citizen Care Pod is a smart screening and testing pod that incorporates intelligent technologies into a modular design to help governments, corporations, and communities recover safely and responsibly. (3)

The initiative, which may be customized to enable full-on mobile COVID-19 testing in high-traffic areas, will aid in mass testing, screening, and eventually vaccination. (3)

-The design of the project

The Citizen Care Pod is a 20- or 40-foot shipping container with four to ten testing stations that is used to physically and safely segregate patients from healthcare staff.

The pods consist of assembled shipping containers, “with customizable options to support rapid delivery and installation to any site, including high-traffic or remote locations”. (3)

-Conclusion

The pod’s adaptability means it may be used for testing and screening during flu season and virus outbreaks, as well as administering vaccines and other future public health needs. Finally, the Citizen Care Pod comes standard with a set of smart technologies and design characteristics, but it can be upgraded to accommodate more smart systems.

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