Italy was the first country in the European Union to be hit hard by COVID-19. CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati in Turin, Italy created an open-source design and working prototype for an intensive care unit utilizing a shipping container. One unit can house two patients. Windows admit light and allow clinicians and family members to view patients. An inflatable structure connects the unit to the hospital and serves as a storage and changing room. Unlike a field hospital built in a tent or stadium, this negative-pressure unit isolates sick patients. Open-source plans for CURA have been downloaded and adapted for local manufacturing. Three units were built in Greece in 2021.

Content from the exhibition Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics, curated by MASS Design Group and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum