Italians Design An Emergency Hospital Out Of Shipping Containers

Currently, Italy is the world's worst-hit country by the pandemic. Within the last 24 hours, 743 have passed away from Covid-19, bringing the death toll to a total of 6,820. Over 3,000 people are left in critical condition with more and more of them arriving at the ICU every day. The hospitals are overcrowded and doctors and nurses are run down from exhaustion. Unfortunately, the pandemic shows no signs of easing any time soon.

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With the growing need for increased ICU capacity, both the government and various organizations are looking for solutions to solve the problem that is costing lives.

Recently, an international task force of designers, engineers, medical professionals, and military experts teamed up to create CURA—an open-source project aimed at capacity building in Intensive Care Units (ICU).

The creators of CURA got the brilliant idea to turn shipping containers into intensive care pods that will serve as wards for COVID-19 patients. The project was designed by Italian architects Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota.

According to the creators, these 20-foot intermodal containers can be mounted as quickly as a hospital tent, but are as safe as the isolation ward due to biocontainment with negative pressure.

These pods are easy to transport and can be deployed within hours. They can be used individually or can be set up in various arrangements connected by an inflatable structure.

Each of the biocontainment units has the capacity to fit medical equipment and two patients.

The very first CURA, which is being developed in an open-source, not-for-profit framework, is now being built in Milan, Italy, with the sponsorship of UniCredit.