Cholera—a curable, preventable disease—did not exist in Haiti before the earthquake of 2010. The GHESKIO health center asked MASS Design Group to design a permanent facility to replace temporary cholera treatment tents. The Cholera Treatment Center creates its own water and sanitation infrastructure. A rainwater catchment system collects and filters water. The building can sanitize...
Most modern ventilators actively force air into the lungs. In contrast, several recent devices change the air pressure around the body to make the chest expand and contract passively. This gentler form of ventilation is more like natural breathing. These new devices are reviving the principle of the iron lung, which saved thousands of lives...
Today, vast health networks sprawl across cities and regions, serving as engines of employment and economic growth. Hospital design must account for complex equipment, disaster-safe infrastructure, flexible use, future growth, and the daily flow of patients, families, and workers. Content from the exhibition Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics, curated by MASS Design Group...
Emergency hospitals and clinics are erected during wars, disasters, and epidemics. Since the 19th century, field hospitals have been prefabricated off-site or made with cheap, readily available materials. Built for temporary use, these rough facilities often stay in use well past their intended lifespans. In spring 2020, emergency hospitals were built in New York City...
For nearly twenty years between the two world wars, E. McKnight Kauffer, an American, was the most celebrated graphic designer in England. He was best known for his eye-catching posters, but his book covers and illustrations, graphic identities, carpets, stage sets, costumes, and ephemera were also among the most arresting of his era. Kauffer believed fervently that modern art should move beyond the walls of museums and galleries to infiltrate all elements of daily life.
This article was written by Jono Brandel, new media artist and team lead for Writing with Open Access. It is the first in a series of Design Retrospectives on the prototypes commissioned by Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab as part of Activating Smithsonian Open Access in Spring of 2021. Introduction It was a series of interviews...
On October 7, 1976, Cooper Hewitt opened, joining the Smithsonian and becoming the nation’s design museum. Learn how that came to be.
Activating Smithsonian Open Access (ASOA) was born from a conversation that took place in June of 2020, while much of the world was locked down. Millions of jobs evaporated overnight, and those working in the creative and gig economies watched incomes, projects, and years of hard-won programmatic gains in the arts and humanities vanish without...
Building on the work presented in Tools and Approaches for Transforming Museum Experience, Cooper Hewitt’s Interaction Lab will offer a workshop series this fall 2021 for two separate cohorts of 20 museum practitioners and leaders across visitor experience-related disciplines who are currently working on transformative museum experience projects. The definition of a transformative museum experience...
