Hasta La Ideas

The American Institute of Architects has launched a task force to consult on how to adapt buildings into healthcare facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.

Announced yesterday, the initiative by American Institute of Architects (AIA) was created in response to Covid-19 in the US, which now leads the world in confirmed cases.

The task force is intended to provide information on how to convert existing buildings into temporary healthcare facilities to treat those suffering from the virus.

“On a daily basis, I am hearing from our architects who feel a deep sense of moral duty to support our healthcare providers on the frontlines of this pandemic,” said AIA president Jane Frederick.

“As our communities assess buildings to address growing surge capacity, we hope this task force will be a resource to ensure buildings are appropriately and safely adapted for our doctors and nurses.”

“This is a race against time for healthcare facilities”

Kirsten Waltz, the director of facilities, planning and design at Massachusetts healthcare nonprofit Baystate Health, is working with the task force to advise how to modify hospitals and smaller facilities to meet the surging demand of beds, as well as design more medical screening and triage areas.

“This is a race against time for healthcare facilities to meet bed surge capacity needs,” Waltz said.

“This task force will help inform best practices for quickly assessing building inventory and identifying locations that are most appropriate to be adapted for this crisis.”

A number of hotels and vacant buildings in America have already turned into temporary relief centres such as New York’s Javits Center, which was set to hold the now-cancelled International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Environmental health scientist and architect Molly Scanlon, who is chair of AIA’s task force, said that many more places are needed to treat the number of people that will be affected.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic public health response there is an unprecedented need for the adaptive reuse of buildings to serve a variety of functions,” she said.

“Architects and our allied design and construction professionals are in a unique position to leverage our advanced problem-solving skills to bring forth ideas for community implementation.”

The AIA is also developing a Covid-19 report called the Rapid Response Safety Space Assessment for members to use to consider the suitability of buildings and spaces sites for relevant care.

Task force follows other proposals to support hospitals

A group of architects with experience in healthcare facility design and disaster assistance are creating the report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks.

A number of architects and designers have already created schemes to ease the pressure on hospitals during the pandemic.

Italian architects Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota have proposed an intensive-care pod within shipping containers. In a similar scheme, Jupe has unveiled the “world’s first standalone Intensive Care Unit” and other pop-up care facilities to help hospitals.

As the health pandemic also affects the economy, the AIA has also urged the US government to offer financial assistance to small architecture studios.

Photograph is by Adhy Savala on Unsplash.

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To limit single-use plastic, the brand by Humankind delivers their rich, concentrated hand soap—which comes in tea tree, grapefruit or lavender—with an accompanying bacteria- and mold-resistant dish. Your first order will arrive with both products, but those that follow include just the soap. by Humankind’s cold-processed and cured cubes contain a higher amount of glycerin (the moisturizing agent in soap) and boast a greater density, making them longer lasting.

Brilliant British artist Grayson Perry (CBE RA) is teaming up with Channel 4 for a television show instructing viewers how to hone their own creative skills. With Grayson’s Art Club, the beloved artist will offer tips on painting, drawing and sculpting. He then hopes to display the work in a future exhibition. Perry tells the Evening Standard, “Accessibility is a part of what I want to do which is make art an ordinary part of life but a stimulating part of life. I’m not really talking to the art world, I’m more interested in the average Joe on the sofa.” Find out more at the Evening Standard.

First came suspenders, then the belt, then elastic, now we enter the age of the Bucqle. The Bucqle is a product from an alternate universe where pants don’t have belt-loops. It’s quite literally a metal buckle that clips around the waist-rim of your pants and tightens it by as much as 2 inches. The pros? You can use it on all sorts of pants and skirts, even ones without belt-loops… especially ones without belt loops. The Bucqle is also discrete, doesn’t involve wrapping your waist with a strip of leather or canvas, and by virtue of its metal construction, lasts a lifetime. The only con? That nobody ever thought of something this ingenious before.

If you’ve got a pair of pants on right now, perform this trick. Take your index and middle finger and make the victory sign (a ‘V’ shape). Now wedge your pant’s waist rim between both fingers so that you’ve got one finger in and another finger out. Now just turn your hand so that the fingers twist your pant’s waistline, tightening it. That’s essentially what the Bucqle does. It doesn’t hold your pants up, like a pair of suspenders, or form a noose around your hips like a belt… it just uses a clipping and twisting mechanism to tighten your pants around the waist.

A great way to radically redesign a product is to remove its most essential part and rework your design to still be functional. A great example is how the touchscreen smartphone ditched the tactile keyboard, or how the digital clock ditched the need for rotating hands, and it’s similarly how the Bucqle ditched the leather belt and became a better product without it. The Bucqle’s radical redesign isn’t just different, it’s exceptionally better. The Bucqle slips right into your pant and clamps shut, showing up as just a minimal-looking silver bar right above your pants. It works equally well with formal pants as it does with shorts, skirts, and even pajamas if you’re determined. The Bucqle’s adjustable design functions the way a belt does, but its flexibility lets you exactly control the tightness of your pants, unlike a belt, which usually has a pre-determined set of belt-holes. Its tiny size means it occupies a fraction of the space of a belt when you’re packing it into a suitcase, and its metal construction makes it out-last any given belt. Going the extra distance to ensure you feel comfortable wearing the Bucqle, it even comes with a rubberized back, to ensure the device holds its place and doesn’t slide around.

I’ll be honest, after seeing the Bucqle, it’s going to be hard going back to my belt. The Bucqle is, in every way, a better designed product. It’s smaller, lighter, more durable, works universally, is gender-neutral, and here’s the best part… it can be fastened and opened with a single hand!

Designers: Daan van der Lecq & Jasper Stas

Click Here to Buy Now: $47 $67 (30% Off). Hurry, only 5/1700 left! Raised over $200,000.

Bucqle – Modern Replacement of your Belt

Belts can be bulky, uncomfortable, inevitably present and just a hassle. The Bucqle provides a universal perfect fit for all your pants and skirts. With its infinite adjustment system, Bucqle tightens your waistband by the millimeter, limited by 50mm. Don’t worry about fluctuating weight!

The Bucqle is made of premium watch Steelinox and is half the size of a credit card. The plain design offers endless possibilities for customization.

Slim design, perfect curve and infinitely adjustable.

Easily applicable, adjustable and removable.

A belt takes steps of 3-4 centimeters, while a Bucqle tightens over 2 confection sizes, with a maximum of 5 centimeters.

Features

Available in Arctic Silver, Gun Metal & Oyster Gold

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Prada, COS and Louis Vuitton are among the leading fashion brands that are retooling to manufacture surgical face masks in response to the shortage caused by Covid-19.

Yves Saint Laurent and Balenciaga have begun production of cotton face masks. Other brands including COS, Zara and Mango have also committed to making the surgical masks, while luxury conglomerate LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) has promised to donate millions of masks and medical-grade respirators to replenish dwindling supplies.

Prada to supply over 100,000 medical masks

Prada has announced that it will be producing 80,000 medical overalls and 110,000 masks in its factory in Montone in Umbria. These will be allocated to healthcare personnel in Tuscany, following a request from the Italian region’s government.

The company is making loose-fitting cloth masks that cover the nose and mouth, offering one-way protection to capture bodily fluid leaving the wearer. Although these masks can’t provide full coverage against coronavirus they can stop coughs and remind the wearer not to touch their face.

Los Angeles Apparel founder Dov Charney and American fashion designer Christian Siriano have also announced that their brands will be making cotton masks.

While Charney hopes his factory can produce 300,000 masks and 50,000 gowns in a week, Siriano has reassigned 10 seamstresses in New York to make a few thousand masks per week.

Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent to begin mask production

French luxury group Kering has announced it is purchasing and importing three million surgical masks from China to donate to the French health service.

Kering-owned Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent are also preparing to manufacture masks, although it is unclear to what timescale.

“The French workshops of Kering’s Houses Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent are preparing to manufacture masks while complying with the strictest health protection measures for their staff members, with production getting underway as soon as the manufacturing process and materials have been approved by the relevant authorities,” Kering said in a statement released on 22 March.

Gucci, also owned by Kering, has said it will donate over one million masks and 55,000 pairs of medical overalls to Italy in the coming weeks.

COS, Zara and Mango set to make masks

High-street brands have also joined in the fight. Spanish group Inditex – owner of Zara and Mango – has pledged to produce surgical masks, and claims to be in the process of distributing two million donated masks across Spain.

COS, owned by H&M Group, announced in an Instagram post that it is preparing to produce masks for healthcare workers as a “first step”, and will share more updates of its actions in the following weeks. It is not yet known what type of masks COS intends on producing.

LVMH to donate three million FFP2 respirators

Luxury goods conglomerate LVMH announced it will be ordering a total of 40 million FFP2 disposable particulate respirators and surgical masks from China to be distributed to healthcare workers in France.

These tight-fitting respirator masks, the most common of which are those labeled FFP2 in Europe or N95 in the US, provide two-way protection, and are harder to manufacture.

LVMH, which owns well-known brands like Dior, Givenchy and Fendi, explained in a statement that seven million surgical masks and three million FFP2 masks would be delivered in the days following the announcement. This order will be repeated for at least four weeks in similar quantities.

Apple, Ford and Tesla to manufacture medical supplies

Meanwhile, non-fashion companies are also working to restock dwindling medical supplies. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced in a tweet on 21 March that the company was donating “millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe”.

Ford recently followed in the steps of fellow automakers Tesla, Vauxhall and General Motors in contributing to ventilator and mask supplies.

The American car brand announced yesterday that it is working with 3M to manufacture at scale Powered Air-Purifying Respirators (PAPRs), which come in the form of a hood, or full-face mask.

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