DESIGNING FOR SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION

Mon, Jul 20, 2020

Design for the Pandemic doesn’t focus only on the built environment, the hospitals, homes and offices.

In the last few months designers have been working on all sorts of innovations that could rapidly tackle the unpredictable to make it visible, measurable, knowable, and therefore controllable.

1. VIRTUAL REALITY AGAINST COVID
The George Washington Hospital in DC is using VR TO ASSESS COVID patients and see what is happening in their lungs, to better visualize their conditions and plan the most viable therapy.

2. MICROBE MAPPERS
Maps are a very powerful tool to visualize any dynamic. Microbiologists are collecting datas and swaps from around our cities to build very specific maps showing HOW THE VIRUS MOVES AROUND and identifying the dangerous hot-spots of the contagion.

3. SAVING GADGETS
Scientist are also focusing on WEARABLES that could predict illnesses with some advance by analysing the user’s data. It is a very tricky task for such a rapid virus as Corona, but the research results could actually affect any sort of illness prediction, such as influenza, and actually help a rapid response.

4. SMART BIOSENSORS
Philips has been developing sensors REMOTELY MONITORING patients’ vital signs when in isolation, whose conditions can change very quickly. Once again, the collected data can inform a wider net of hospitals and provide a shared database to empower the response to the illness.

5. MONITORING APPS
Besides portables and sensors, in various countries researchers have developed specific APPS TO TRACK DOWN THE CONTAGION dynamics. Science can really empower us, but data tracking is a very sensible issue, one we have to be very aware of when deciding whether using technology and how.

The Regular Registration period has just closed for our competitions: HEALING – ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS FOR QUARANTINE CITIES and SOCIAL DISTANCING HOUSING BLOCK. Our LATE REGISTRATION PERIOD just opened until August the 16th.
Please have a look at the updated briefs with some extra instructions about the submission formatting and delivery.

“Every brilliant experiment, like every great work of art, starts with an act of imagination.” – Jonah Lehrer
Veronica