This exhibition, curated by MASS Design Group and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, was organized during the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic revealed what some have known for a long time: breathing is spatial. This fact has implications at the scale of the body, building, city, and planet. Everyone on Earth has been affected by the pandemic. Unequal access to housing, jobs, and health care ensured that COVID-19 hit marginalized communities harder than others.
This exhibition presents architectural case studies and historical narratives alongside creative design responses to COVID-19. Every designer, artist, doctor, engineer, or neighbor featured in the exhibition asked, “How can I help?” They used open-source collaboration, rapid-response prototyping, product hacking, and social activism to create medical devices, protective gear, infographics, political posters, architecture, and community services—all with the shared aspiration to reduce structural barriers that keep us from accessing the care we all deserve.
Highlights
A selection of objects featured in the exhibition.
Mosquito Net Veil, photograph: Wellcome Collection
Essential Mask Brace, 2020, Sabrina Paseman, Katherine Paseman, and William Paseman, Fix the Mask
To keep out mosquitos, Dr. Albert Freeman Africanus King (American, 18411915) proposed erecting a screen over Washington, D.C. Photomontage: Jeffrey Mansfield, MASS Design Group
Workers First Poster, 2020, Brian Herrera
Ventizolve Naloxone Kit, 2020, ANTI (A New Type of Interface)
New York City Streatery, photograph: Jennifer Tobias
Don’t Let Racism Go Viral Poster, 2020, Kayan Cheung-Miaw
Social Distance Graphics, Vicchio, Italy, 2020, Caret Studio
Charlotte Valve and Mask, 2020, Cristian Fracassi and Alessandro Romaioli, Isinnova
Curatorial team: MASS Design Group (Regina Chen, Jeffrey Mansfield, Michael Murphy, Morgan O’Hara and Maggie Stern). Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (Ellen Lupton, senior curator of contemporary design, and Julie Pastor, curatorial assistant) Exhibition designer: MASS Design Group (Annie Wang) Graphic designers: Span (Alyssa Arnesen and Bud Rodecker) and Rick Valicenti
Support
Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics is made possible with major support from Crystal and Chris Sacca.
Generous support is also provided by Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Cooper Hewitt Master’s Program Fund.
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....
Dots, Lines, Color and Humans (with Audio Descriptions) Dots, Lines, Color and Humans (without audio descriptions) Brainwaves project explainer (with audio descriptions) brainwaves project explainer (without audio descriptions) cura (with audio descriptions) Cura (without audio descriptions) For more about the exhibition, visit https://www.cooperhewitt.org/channel/design-and-healing For more on Cooper Hewitt’s Accessibility Initiatives, please visit:...
What is architecture’s impact on the physical and social wellness of society? Why are our buildings making us sicker? MASS Design Group explores these questions and more in its latest book, The Architecture of Health: Hospital Design and the Construction of Dignity (Nov. 2021), published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (Artbook DAP, distributors). The book examines how our built world was shaped by disease and reveals how historical examples can offer us caution and inspiration. Join us for a virtual book talk with author Michael Murphy, Founding Principal and Executive Director of MASS Design Group, in conversation with Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for the New York Times.