BLDGBlog speculates about design that helps prevent the spread of infectious disease.
“You go to the Salone del Mobile next year in Milan and discover that I’ve somehow released a new line of furniture. Each piece varies just slightly from the rest, in that their measurements have been dictated not by human comfort, international rates of shipment, or even by industrial timber specifications, but by the distances medically necessary to maintain between yourself and others in order to avoid respiratory infections.
“The common flu is now a dining table measured exactly against the reach of sneezes; SARS is a cubicle lined with an industrial felt that absorbs all coughs; pneumonia is a bar stool, hand-crafted from white pine, with a circumference of rails to prevent people getting too close.”
***
“It’s interesting to note, however, that swine flu, unsurprisingly, comes from “close contact with pigs” – that is, spatial proximity between humans and their livestock. Swine flu, we could say, is a spatial problem….”
I want to quote the whole thing, instead, just go check it out.
