Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Architecture (MArch)

Department

Architecture

First Advisor

Anne Tate

Second Advisor

Jonathan Knowles

Abstract

Due to COVID-19, uncertainties and significant changes have been occurring around the world, especially in the U.S. The future is always ambiguous but it will lead to breakthroughs. Emerging issues are the vulnerability of previous conventional design solutions, especially of the healthcare-related architecture and urban planning.

This thesis focuses on helping construct a new healthcare system, which could be used during either a pandemic or post-pandemic era, by designing a local community clinic. In fact, public health clinics are always needed and expected to be more flexibly adjustable and up-gradable. Those new clinics play a very important role since the latest types of aerosolized respiratory viruses have transformed faster and more fatal. For instance, only in a twenty-year period, there were so many deadly infectious viral outbreaks, such as SARS in 2002, H1N1 in 2009, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014, and COVID-19 in 2019. Therefore, the main purpose of new-generation clinics is not only to support and protect people from the emerging threats, but also to aim to an active preparation that could adapt to any possible pandemics in the future.

The resulting problems of COVID-19 outbreak in medical facilities are in deed worldwide. The increasing number of patients exacerbates any healthcare system, which has not yet been purposefully designed for infectious design control. The mode of disease transmission – in this case, airborne – identifies design problems, such as overcrowded areas and poorly ventilated hospitals. Moreover, even though wearing facial masks helps to decrease aerosolized respiratory droplets to some degrees, healthcare facilities are highly vulnerable sites. Thus, they could easily become hotspots, and spread the illness via human contacts even more.

Included in

Architecture Commons

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