MANILA, PHILIPPINES – It’s not just the Philippines that is struggling to keep patients moving in and out of hospitals as they recover from the COVID-19 disease. Healthcare facilities around the world have an influx of patients and potential carriers of the pandemic that need to be cared for. Here in the Philippines, most especially in Manila, we see stories on the daily about patients having to be redirected several times until they find an empty hospital room for them to be tested on, and an empty bed they can use while in treatment and recovery.
A quick fix that architects over the WTA Architecture and Design Studio have thought of is building facilities that can be finished within six days with minimal manpower and readily available materials.
“The idea behind it started from a conversation between me and Dr. Glenn Angeles. We were discussing how the hospitals were filling up and were no longer able to accept [patients]. We thought that would be bad since people would walk around and spread it more. I remembered a pavilion we did before at Anthology Festival based on the idea of building something quick and easy. We brought it up quickly with the next day with Maj Carmelo Jaluague and Maj Banjo Badayos and very quickly we decided to give it a go,” shared William Ti, Principal Architect at WTA Architecture and Design Studio.
The word was quick to spread as the initial four hospitals they planned on building the facilities for rapidly grew to 22 hospitals. The studio has since been working with volunteer architects as well as suppliers willing to donate not just supplies but warehouse space as well. With the aid of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, they were able to take care of their logistic concerns, delivering materials. Ti shares construction of their first facility began on March 28, finished by April 1, and turned over by April 2.
Ti adds that the design needed to be built fast, was easy to scale up, and replicate. These are the reasons why they chose to use materials like wood and plastic sheets or tarps. Plus, both types of materials are, as he says, flexible and forgiving, which means mistakes are easily repaired and adjusted.
“We started with a budget of P350k having been able to source donors for so much of the materials we were using. In the end though, most sites have been requesting air conditioning and our list of hospitals has since ballooned to over 65 sites and growing daily. So right now it costs us about P550k to build each site and six days to finish. So we’ve just decided to keep building as long as we still have funding and raising funds to build more.”
Ti and his team have made the designs open source and available for anyone to download in the hopes that more people will be able to build and make use of the facility. You can download the designs here.
“Overall we wanted to emphasize the beauty of the structure in its simplicity and honesty of material. No akin to cover anything. Just the materials as they are. Creating an honest and veritable building that is quite ephemeral and provide a pleasant very bright atmosphere for patients inside,” Ti added.
For cash donations, you can go to this link.
You may also send us your donations directly to our bank account at:
Bank Name: BDO Unibank
Account Name: Anthology Festival Organization Manila Inc.
Account Number: 004658012036
Once deposited, kindly email us your deposit
or bank transfer slip to eqfacility@anthologyfest.org
