Alice Rawsthorn presents Design Emergency

Summary

The video script discusses the pivotal role of design in addressing the COVID-19 crisis, highlighting the 'Design Emergency' platform co-founded by the speaker and Paola Antonelli. It showcases how global design leaders have creatively tackled challenges from public awareness to medical treatment, with examples like the iconic SARS-CoV-2 illustration and the Afghan Dreamer robotics team's ventilator. The script emphasizes the need for thoughtful design in post-pandemic reconstruction, focusing on health care, housing, and social systems, advocating for design as a key tool for tackling broader societal issues.

Takeaways

• 🏥 The script highlights the role of design in emergencies, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing its importance in finding solutions to global crises.
• 🌐 The launch of the 'Design Emergency' research platform by the speaker and Paola Antonelli is aimed at investigating the global design response to COVID-19 and other emergencies, showcasing the potential of design to influence public and political perceptions.
• 💡 The script acknowledges the courage, creativity, and resourcefulness of designers, architects, and engineers in addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic from the outset.
• 📊 The critical role of design in explaining and visualizing COVID-19, especially in the early stages of the pandemic, is underscored by the work of medical illustrators like Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins.
• 🔍 The 'Spiky Blob' visualization of SARS-CoV-2 became a globally recognized image, symbolizing the pandemic and influencing public perception and response.
• 🏥 The script discusses the contributions of design to COVID-19 treatment, including the expansion of telemedical networks and the redesign of healthcare facilities by organizations like MASS Design Group.
• 🏁 The global design race for ventilators revealed the challenges of meeting medical standards and the importance of collaboration, pragmatism, and the use of standardized components.
• 🌟 The Afghan Dreamer robotics team's story exemplifies the ingenuity and determination of young designers in creating solutions under challenging circumstances.
• 📢 The importance of clear, precise, and coherent public information programs in emergencies is highlighted, with the Unite Against COVID-19 campaign from New Zealand as a successful example.
• 🤝 The script emphasizes the community spirit and volunteer networks that have been crucial in producing personal protective equipment and supporting vulnerable populations during the pandemic.
• ⚠️ The script also points out design failures, such as the poor design of PPE and the inhumane treatment of homeless individuals, as reminders of the need for better design in post-pandemic reconstruction.
• 🛠️ The speaker and Paola Antonelli aim to position design at the forefront of post-pandemic reconstruction, focusing on interviews with global design leaders who are reinventing various aspects of society to make it more fit for purpose.

Q & A

What was the primary purpose of launching the 'Design Emergency' platform?

The 'Design Emergency' platform was launched to investigate the global design response to COVID-19 and other emergencies, with the aim of raising awareness of design's value in a global crisis and ensuring its role in the radical redesign and reconstruction of our lives post-pandemic.

Who are the founders of the 'Design Emergency' platform and what are their roles?

The 'Design Emergency' platform was founded by Paola Antonelli, a senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a friend who is not named in the transcript. They are both convinced that the crisis could change public and political perceptions of design.

What was the initial response to COVID-19 in terms of design?

The initial design response to COVID-19 involved creating visualizations to explain what the virus was, particularly by medical illustrators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who created the iconic 'Spiky Blob' image of SARS-CoV-2.

How did the 'Spiky Blob' image contribute to public perception of COVID-19?

The 'Spiky Blob' image gave a face to the unknown, making the virus more tangible and understandable to the public. It was designed to convey the danger of the new infection, prompting people to take it seriously and elicit instinctive responses.

What role did the MASS Design Group play in the design response to COVID-19?

The MASS Design Group in Boston swiftly converted some of its recently-built healthcare facilities in Rwanda and Haiti into COVID care centers, applying lessons learned from previous crises. They also advised hospitals in the US, such as Mount Sinai in New York, on facility conversions for COVID treatment.

What was the global design race for ventilators and what were its outcomes?

The global design race for ventilators involved hundreds of designers, engineers, and manufacturers attempting to develop new ventilators quickly. The most successful attempts were modest and pragmatic, often modifying existing systems and using standardized components, rather than designing from scratch.

What is an example of a grassroots design initiative that emerged during the pandemic?

An example of a grassroots design initiative is the Afghan Dreamer robotics team, consisting of five teenage girls who designed and built emergency ventilators using recycled components, including car parts, under challenging conditions in their home city of Herat.

How did the design of public information campaigns vary in effectiveness during the pandemic?

Most COVID campaigns were not clear, precise, or coherent, with the UK being cited as an example. However, the Unite Against COVID-19 campaign in New Zealand, designed by the Clemenger BBDO marketing agency, was an exception, being put together quickly and constantly refined for clarity and accessibility.

What role did volunteer networks play in the design response to COVID-19?

Volunteer networks worldwide were invaluable in mass-producing personal protective equipment for frontline workers and providing practical help for vulnerable neighbors, such as shopping for food and collecting prescriptions. In India, self-help groups were particularly dynamic in these efforts.

What are some of the design deficiencies that have been exposed by the pandemic?

Design deficiencies exposed by the pandemic include the poor design of PPE causing damage to healthcare workers' faces and the lack of consideration for homeless populations, such as the Las Vegas homeless shelter incident. These deficiencies highlight the need for better design in future crisis responses.

How does the 'Design Emergency' platform intend to influence post-pandemic reconstruction?

The 'Design Emergency' platform aims to persuade more people, especially decision-makers, to see design as a powerful tool to address various challenges and to place it at the forefront of post-pandemic reconstruction by showcasing constructive design responses to COVID-19.

Outlines

00:00

🌐 Design's Role in Pandemic Response

The script discusses the pivotal role design has played in addressing emergencies, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the establishment of the 'Design Emergency' research platform by the narrator and Paola Antonelli to study global design solutions to the pandemic. The platform's aim is to change public and political perceptions of design and ensure its integral role in post-pandemic reconstruction. The script also emphasizes the importance of design in educating the public about COVID-19 through medical illustrations, such as the iconic 'Spiky Blob' image by Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins, which humanized the virus and prompted various societal responses.

05:02

🛠️ The Ventilator Design Challenge

This paragraph delves into the global race to design ventilators in response to COVID-19. It notes the challenges faced by various entities, including luxury car manufacturers and Elon Musk, in meeting stringent medical standards for ventilator design. The most successful efforts were those that were collaborative, pragmatic, and utilized standardized components. The script also celebrates the ingenuity of self-taught designers and medical professionals, especially the Afghan Dreamer robotics team's use of recycled materials to create emergency ventilators. Additionally, it touches on the importance of clear and effective public information campaigns, with the New Zealand government's 'Unite Against COVID-19' campaign serving as a model of clarity and unity.

10:04

🌱 Community and Design in Crisis

The final paragraph focuses on the community spirit and volunteer networks that emerged to address the pandemic, particularly the self-help groups in India that provided essential services to their communities. It also examines the shortcomings in design, such as the poorly designed PPE that caused harm to healthcare workers and the inhumane treatment of homeless individuals during the crisis. The narrator and Paola Antonelli aim to use 'Design Emergency' to showcase constructive design responses and advocate for design's central role in addressing broader societal challenges and in the reconstruction of a post-pandemic world.

Keywords

💡Design

Design is the process of creating a plan or blueprint for the construction of an object, system, or measurable human interaction. In the context of the video, design plays a crucial role in addressing and solving problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is portrayed as a tool for innovation and resourcefulness, with designers creating solutions such as medical illustrations, ventilators, and public information campaigns to combat the crisis.

💡COVID-19

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which emerged in late 2019 and led to a global pandemic. The video discusses the impact of COVID-19 and how the design community has responded to it, providing solutions for treatment, information dissemination, and public health guidance.

💡Medical Illustrators

Medical illustrators are professionals who specialize in visualizing medical and biological information. In the script, Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins from the CDC are highlighted for their work in creating the iconic visualization of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which helped the public understand and take the threat of COVID-19 seriously.

💡Ventilators

Ventilators are medical devices that assist people in breathing when they are unable to do so on their own. The script describes the global design race to create ventilators to address the urgent need for these life-saving machines during the pandemic, emphasizing the challenges and the collaborative efforts of various professionals in this endeavor.

💡Public Information Campaigns

Public information campaigns are strategic efforts to inform and educate the public about specific issues. The video contrasts the effectiveness of different COVID-19 public information campaigns, with a particular focus on New Zealand's 'Unite Against COVID-19' campaign, which is praised for its clarity, coherence, and visual consistency.

💡Humanitarian Architects

Humanitarian architects are professionals who focus on designing structures and systems to address humanitarian crises. The script mentions MASS Design Group, which converted healthcare facilities in Rwanda and Haiti into COVID care centers, demonstrating how design can be applied to immediate and critical needs during a crisis.

💡Design Emergency

Design Emergency is a research platform launched by the speaker and Paola Antonelli to investigate the global design response to COVID-19 and other emergencies. It serves as a central theme in the video, illustrating the proactive and innovative role of design in crisis management and the potential for design to influence public and political perceptions.

💡Resourcefulness

Resourcefulness refers to the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. The video emphasizes the resourcefulness of designers, engineers, and other professionals in creating solutions for the COVID-19 crisis, such as repurposing car parts for ventilators or organizing community efforts for producing PPE.

💡PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

PPE refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment used to protect the wearer from injury or infection. The script discusses the importance of well-designed PPE in protecting frontline workers and the issues arising from poorly designed equipment, which can cause harm or be impractical to clean.

💡Socially-Distanced

Socially-distanced refers to the practice of keeping a certain physical distance between people to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. The video script mentions a Las Vegas homeless shelter incident where social distancing was poorly implemented, highlighting the need for thoughtful design in public health measures.

💡Post-Pandemic Reconstruction

Post-pandemic reconstruction refers to the rebuilding and reorganizing of society after the pandemic. The video advocates for design to be at the forefront of this process, emphasizing the need for radical redesign and reconstruction to address pre-existing and pandemic-unveiled issues, such as climate change, inequality, and systemic injustice.

Highlights

Design's role in history has been crucial in dealing with emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic required design solutions.

The design response to the pandemic was bold, inspiring, and resourceful, serving as a demonstration of design's value in a global crisis.

Design Emergency, a research platform, was launched to investigate the global design response to COVID-19 and other emergencies.

The crisis could be a game changer for public and political perceptions of design, aiming to ensure design's role in post-pandemic reconstruction.

Design Emergency started with weekly IG Live interviews with global leaders of the COVID relief effort.

Designers, architects, and engineers displayed courage, creativity, and dedication in their response to COVID-19.

A critical role of design was explaining COVID-19, with medical illustrators visualizing the virus for public understanding.

The visualization of SARS-CoV-2 by Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins became one of the most recognizable images of our time.

People projected their instinctive responses to COVID onto the 'Spiky Blob' image, expressing fears and diffusing terror in creative ways.

Design contributions to treating COVID-19 included telemedical networks expansion and hospital redesigns.

MASS Design Group converted healthcare facilities into COVID care centers and advised US hospitals on facility conversions.

The global design race for ventilators showcased the best and worst in designers, engineers, and manufacturers.

Successful ventilator designs were typically modest, pragmatic, and based on modifying existing systems.

Innovative ideas for ventilators came from medical professionals and self-taught designers in fragile states.

The Afghan Dreamer robotics team, consisting of teenage girls, designed and built emergency ventilators using recycled components.

Design has been crucial in informing the public about the crisis and advising on responses, with examples like New Zealand's Unite Against COVID-19 campaign.

Volunteer networks have mass-produced PPE and provided practical help for vulnerable communities, particularly in India.

Design Emergency has tracked both successful and failed COVID design projects, highlighting the need for better design in post-pandemic reconstruction.

Paola and the platform aim to persuade decision-makers to see design as a powerful tool for addressing various challenges.

Design Emergency focuses on global design leaders who are reinventing areas like healthcare, housing, and social systems for a better future.

Transcripts

(light music)

- One of design's crucial roles throughout history

has been to help us to deal with emergencies.

When COVID-19 struck, it was clear that many of the problems

it caused would require design solutions.

And soon it became equally clear that the design response

to the pandemic was so bold, so inspiring,

and so resourceful that it would serve

as a compelling demonstration of its value

in a global crisis,

a rare good news story for the media,

and sorely needed source of hope and optimism for everyone.

So in the spring,

I launched a research platform Design Emergency

with my friend Paola Antonelli,

senior curator of architecture and design

at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

to investigate the global design response

to COVID-19 and other emergencies.

Paola and I are both convinced

that this crisis could be a game changer

for public and political perceptions of design.

And we want to raise awareness of this

in the hope of ensuring that design

will be at the forefront of the radical redesign

and reconstruction of our lives post-pandemic.

We began Design Emergency in the spring

by running weekly IG Live interviews

with designers who we believe are the global leaders

of the COVID relief effort.

We then began a second, ongoing phase in the summer

by interviewing the global design leaders

who'll reinvent our lives for the future.

So what are the most compelling COVID design projects?

Paola and I were spoiled for choice

because designers, architects, engineers,

and their collaborators have displayed

such courage, creativity, resourcefulness,

and dedication from the outset.

Now a critical role of design

has been explaining what COVID-19 is,

particularly at the beginning.

And it's important to remember

that even the world's greatest epidemiologists

couldn't answer that question

at the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

But by the end of January 2020

there was just enough information

about its genetic coding for the medical illustrators,

the scientists who specialize

in visualizing new diseases to go to work.

Two medical illustrators at the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention in Atlanta,

Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins were charged with doing that

on the 21st of January,

the day after the CDC had activated

its emergency response center for COVID.

10 days later, they completed, signed off,

and launched a visualization of SARS-CoV-2,

the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

And as Alissa said in our Design Emergency interview,

the image gave a face to the unknown.

Medical illustrations like this one

have to be scientifically precise.

If not, they wouldn't be credible.

But their designers have some license for expression.

Alissa and Dan were told to ensure that the public

would sense the danger posed by the mysterious new infection

and take it seriously.

So they exaggerated the scariest element of SARS-CoV-2,

the spike or S-proteins that spread contagion

by attaching it to human cells.

They made them more numerous, bigger,

sharper and spikier in their illustration

in a scary shade of red.

Nicknamed "The Spiky Blob" for obvious reasons,

their image became ubiquitous worldwide within days.

It's one of the most recognizable images of our time,

the most famous medical illustration in history

that promises to become an enduring symbol of terror

akin to the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb.

But the power of Alissa and Dan's design

was also evident in the speed with which people everywhere

projected their instinctive responses to COVID

onto it by interpreting it.

Some people expressed their fears like the police officers

in the Indian city of Chennai

who wore spiky, blob-shaped helmet, shields,

and spears made by local artists Gowtham

to them to raise the alarm about COVID-19.

Other people diffused their terror of the lethal disease

by cutesifying it in hairdos,

so-called coronavirus braids in Kenya,

as well as cupcakes, cartoons, and pinatas

which they'd smash up

to vent their fury against the pandemic.

Through Design Emergency, Paola and I also explored

design's contribution to treating COVID-19

which has taken many forms,

from the expansion of telemedical networks

like Sehat Kahani's in Pakistan

to the speedy redesign of hospitals and clinics.

In the forefront of the humanitarian architects

at MASS design group in Boston which swiftly converted

some of its recently-built healthcare facilities

in Rwanda after the Ebola crisis

and Haiti after the cholera outbreak

into COVID care centers.

MASS then applied the lessons learned from those projects

to advise Mount Sinai in New York

and other US hospitals

on converting their facilities for COVID treatment.

But one of the noisiest and most visible design responses

to COVID treatment was of course the global design race

for ventilators which brought out the best

and also sadly the worst in the hundreds of designers,

engineers, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs

who vowed to develop them,

with the showiest among them claiming

that theirs would be designed faster

and would be better than everyone else's.

But designing ventilators to meet

exacting medical standards turned out to be

much more challenging than luxury car makers,

Formula One teams, and Elon Musk had ever imagined.

Tellingly, the most successful attempts

have been modest and pragmatic,

typically collaborations of specialists

from different fields who have modified existing systems

rather than designing new ones from scratch,

have used standardized components wherever possible,

and have shared information with other designers.

Many of the smartest ideas

didn't come from professional designers at all

but from medical professionals

based on their practical experience

and from self-taught designers in fragile states in Africa,

South Asia, and Latin America where there have been

chronic shortages of ventilators throughout the crisis.

My favorite example is that of the five teenage girls

in Afghanistan aged 14 to 17,

all star tech students

and members of the Afghan Dreamer robotics team

who spent months designing and building

emergency ventilators in Herat, their home city.

They used recycled components

including Toyota Corolla car parts.

They worked under intense pressure of lockdown,

supply shortages, and their family's fears for their safety

amid spiraling infections and renewed Taliban violence.

Eventually they not only quelled

the early political criticism of their project

but secured government support

and benefited throughout from the generosity of designers

in other countries who shared their learning,

their design templates and their contacts with them.

Another critically important role for design

has been informing us about the crisis

and advising us on how to respond to it.

Ideally, public information programs

addressing a major emergency like this one

should be as clear, precise, and coherent as possible.

Sadly, most COVID campaigns have been the opposite

as the UK lamentably demonstrates.

But there's one glowing exception, Unite Against COVID-19,

commissioned by the New Zealand government

and designed by the Clemenger BBDO marketing agency

in Wellington, it was put together at speed, just six days,

and has been constantly refined ever since.

Every element, fonts, pictograms, colors,

and graphics are legible, accessible, and friendly

without ever detracting from the tragedy of the situation.

The visual consistency of the black,

white, and yellow palette

and hazard tape diagonal stripes

makes the campaign instantly recognizable.

It also reinforces the theme of unity,

that New Zealanders are all in this together

and can end it together.

The pictograms always depict useful activities,

suggesting subtly that if everyone does their bit,

New Zealand can crack COVID-19.

As the creative director Mark Dalton said

if you're trying to help people,

the last thing you want to say is don't do this.

The same community spirit is evident

in many of my own favorite design responses to COVID.

The networks of volunteers that have emerged worldwide

and have been invaluable in mass-producing

personal protective equipment

for frontline health and social care workers

and in providing practical help for vulnerable neighbors.

Shopping for food, collecting prescriptions,

and walking restless dogs.

Nowhere have these groups been more dynamic than in India

where tens of millions of women

belonging to the national network of self-help groups,

SHGs as they're known,

leapt into action at the start of the pandemic

to help their local communities.

They delivered safety briefings, they made masks.

They provided food and medical supplies to their neighbors

and cooked meals to the destitute.

They even set up a floating supermarket

that took essential supplies to remote rural communities

in Kerala by river.

But Design Emergency has also tracked

the COVID design projects that haven't worked

and the ominous aspects of design that are either exposed

or been exposed by the human and economic turmoil

caused by the pandemic.

Take the inexplicable cruelty of compelling the occupants

of a Las Vegas homeless shelter to spend the night

on hastily-drawn, socially-distanced rectangles

in a casino parking lot

when the shelter had to close due to COVID infections.

And take the design flaws of the PPE

worn by nurses from various countries

who posted selfies on social media

of the damage it caused to their faces

from wearing poorly-designed masks and shields

during lengthy critical care shifts.

Indeed some of the PPE used in the UK

is so poorly designed that hospitals burn it

at the end of each day

because it would take too long

and be far too costly to clean it.

These design deficiencies are timely reminders

of the urgent need to ensure that our lives

will be radically redesigned to make them fit for purpose

when the pandemic is over.

We all knew that they weren't fit for purpose before

with a deepening climate emergency and refugee crisis,

systemic racism and other forms of inequality,

intolerance and injustice, and many other daunting problems.

Paola and I hope that by sharing

constructive design responses to COVID on Design Emergency,

we can persuade more people,

decision-makers especially, to see design as we do.

As a powerful tool to address social, political,

economic, ecological, and technological challenges

and to place it at the forefront

of post-pandemic reconstruction.

To that end, since the summer

we focused our IG Live interviews

on the people who we believe are the global design leaders

who will reinvent our world

to make it fit for purpose in the future.

We've interviewed incredible designers

who are radically reinventing everything from health care,

housing, justice and social systems, to space travel,

disaster relief, artificial intelligence, voting procedures,

and our relationship to nature.

Design isn't a panacea for any of those challenges,

but it is one of our most powerful tools

with which to tackle them if,

and it's a big if,

it's deployed intelligently, sensitively,

and responsibly as we hope

Design Emergency is demonstrating.

(upbeat music)