ExCel centre "obvious choice" to convert into coronavirus hospital says BDP architect

Converting convention centres into coronavirus hospitals is the most efficient way to increase intensive-care capacity, according to James Hepburn of architect BDP, which helped convert London's ExCel centre into the 4,000-bed NHS Nightingale.

Conference centres around the world, including the ExCel in London, the Javits Center in New York and McCormick Place in Chicago, are being converted into temporary hospitals to treat patients with coronavirus.

With case numbers on the rise, countries are under pressure to rapidly increase intensive care capacity, something that architecture firm BDP believes is best done by converting existing buildings, according to Hepburn.

"The less that has to be built or procured, the quicker things can happen," BDP building engineering services principal James Hepburn told Dezeen. "Solutions have to be simple, repeatable and modular."

BDP has converted London's Excel into a coronavirus hospital

In London, Hepburn said that the Moxley Architects-designed ExCel conference centre, which opened in 2000 and is located in the east of the city alongside the Royal Victoria Dock, was a natural choice to convert into a field hospital.

He believes convention centres in other large cities also have the properties that make them suited to being converted.

"When the scale of the shortfall in beds across London became clear, the ExCel Centre was the obvious choice," explained Hepburn.

"It has huge flat floor hall spaces with flexible MEP infrastructure that can be easily adapted to meet the needs of the temporary hospital."

The architecture studio created a poster explaining the conversion

Working with numerous clinicians, consultants, contractors, the ExCel facilities management team and the British Army, BDP created the 500-bed hospital, which can be expanded to 4,000 beds, in around two weeks. To create a functioning hospital so quickly required using the building's existing elements efficiently.

"Minimal building intervention is essential to ensure rapid project delivery, so it is vital that building assets are used to the maximum," said Hepburn.

Following the conversion of the building into the NHS Nightingale hospital, BDP prepared a poster that explains how to create a hospital within a convention centre, and highlights how BDP solved issues that arose.

The conversion into NHS Nightingale aimed to use existing resources

At the ExCel, which usually hosts trade shows and conferences and during the 2012 London Olympics was the venue for seven sporting events, two large wards have been installed in the conference halls on either side of the central circulation space.

This central space is divided from the wards with dedicated areas to put on and take of protective clothing, while a staff canteen, diagnosis room and mortuary have been built at the east end of the building.

"The clinical flows determine circulation strategy within the building," explained Hepburn. "The huge wards are linked with a temporary tunnel across the boulevard which allows connection to the diagnostics area."

"Staff move from the boulevard to and from the ICU wards via the don and doff rooms that allow PPE to be donned and doffed, this is key to infection control," he continued.

The ward is divide with exhibition stands

Inside the giant wards, bed are divided using a system more often used for temporary exhibition stands, with some simple reinforcement added to allow services to be fitted to the walls.

"The bed heads and service corridors have been constructed from a component system that is usually used to construct exhibition stands," explained Hepburn. "It's quick to construct and lightweight."

NHS Nightingale has 500 beds and could be expanded to 4,000

One of the most challenging parts of the conversion was providing the wards with electricity and other services required at each bed.

"The ExCel Centre's existing electrical infrastructure has been modified to increase the resilience, UPS and temporary generators," said Hepburn. "The temporary electrics used for exhibitions has been used to feed a three metre section of bed head dado trunking that has been prefabricated by electrician's on site."

"The medical gas installation is huge, two distribution ring mains run around the basement car park at high level, rising up to feed each bed head through the services floor boxes and then distribute to the bed head via the service corridor between the bed heads," he continued.

BDP hope others can learn from the conversion of the ExCel in NHS Nightingale

According to Hepburn, the rapid conversion of the ExCel Centre was only possible by the teams making quick decisions so that the design and construction could take place simultaneously.

"To deliver this volume of equipped beds within such a short timeframe required all teams to make immediate decisions to allow construction to progress in parallel with design," said Hepburn.

"Solutions had to be flexible, rapid to construct and take into account procurement channels to allow fit-out activities to commence immediately."

"The success of this approach has been the highly collaborative working style," he added.

The coronavirus pandemic is impacting almost every country in the world. In response architects and designers have proposed temporary solutions to increase intensive care capacity.

In Italy Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota designed an intensive-care pod within a shipping container, while flat-pack startup Jupe has created the "world's first standalone intensive care unit" and Opposite Office has proposed creating a temporary superhospital within Berlin's unfinished Brandenburg airport.

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Mintchi Croissant is a São Paulo bakery filled with pastry-inspired details

The interior of this São Paulo patisserie is designed by Dezembro Arquitetos to answer the question, how does it feel to be inside a croissant?

Dezembro Arquitetos, led by architects Marcos Bresser and Thiago Maurelio, designed a series of pastry-inspired details for Mintchi Croissant in Pinheiros.

These include a lightweight cardboard ceiling and furniture elements created using an icing nozzle.

"The lightness of the product became the starting point of the project," explained Maurelio. "Just like in a croissant, the project is organised in these layers."

The first layer, according to Maurelio, is the flooring, countertop and bench seating. These elements are all made using perforated terracotta bricks, which have been unusually infilled with concrete.

Wherever possible, the top of the brick is showing rather than the side edge. This creates a graphic effect, where the concrete fills the small circular gaps and frames the outline of each block.

"Surprisingly the construction process was quite similar as the work done in pastry," said Maurelio.

"The construction workers themselves brought the idea: filling each brick hole with cement using an improvised icing nozzle."

Cardboard tubes cover the ceiling of the bakery, "to carry on with the intended lightness".

Lighting features are inset into some of the tubes, while slender brass lighting pendants hang down through some of the gaps in between.

Other details include a brass pipe that extends down from the ceiling to form a tap, above a basin where bakers can wash their hands.

"Brass details evoke the golden colour of the croissant, while the bricks and cardboard evoke its warmth when freshly brought out of the oven," added Maurelio.

Mintchi Croissant opened in 2019. Before that, the building served as a garage.

The store has a glazed frontage that can open up to the street, encouraging people to come in and take a seat. Golden croissants are displayed on the counter on bespoke brass plates.

Photography is by Carolina Lacaz.

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Project credits:

Architecture office: Dezembro Arquitetos
Architects in charge: Marcos Bresser, Thiago Maurelio
Client: Mintchi Croissant
Engineering/construction: Marcio Monteiro, Allan Nagliati (M² arquitetura)
Foreman: Adilson Souza
Collaborators: Luisa Garbarino

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Heliograf makes playful lamps in the shape of sushi soy sauce bottles

Australian studio Heliograf's Light Soy lamps are designed to emulate the fish-shaped soy sauce bottles found in sushi shops, as a comment on the damaging effects of single-use plastic.

The idea for the Light Soy lamps was born after Heliograf founders Jeffrey Simpson and Angus Ware were shocked by how many of the disposable, soy sauce bottles they had used while eating sushi.

Like other single-use plastics such as straws and coffee cups, the tiny, fish-shaped packets can't be re-used and are difficult to recycle, meaning most end up in landfills or the ocean.

Having both grown up by the coast, the Sydney-based duo struck by the irony that the plastic fish would eventually harm marine life.

Modelled on these small, soy sauce containers, the Light Soy lamp is the designers' way of highlighting the issue of single-use plastic and the impact it has on the environment.

"By taking a piece of rubbish, and dramatically scaling it up, we want to show that small things matter, and we need to make big changes to how we design everyday items," said Ware.

"At every stage, from initial concept through to logistics, we have questioned how we can do better."

Heliograf worked with sustainable design studio Vert Design to develop a luxury product that would have a small footprint.

Durable and recyclable materials including borosilicate glass and powder-coated aluminium were used to make the Light Soy lamp, which has been etched to achieve a frosted finish.

The lamp has taken over three years to produce – two years of which were spent perfecting the glass-blowing technique and developing the right surface finish.

"We chose to subvert our disposable culture by using premium materials and creating something that will be treasured, not trashed," said Simpson.

In order to make the packaging for the light entirely plastic-free and biodegradable, the team chose to use moulded sugarcane fibre instead of polystyrene or plastic.

The lamp is available in two forms: a USB-C rechargeable table lamp or a pendant light. Both options have a built-in 3000K LED with touch-controlled dimming.

The Light Soy lamp is the first release in a collection of designs by Heliograf that take cues from small, everyday objects. Simpson says the studio has "big plans" for the future.

Icelandic designers Fanney Antondsdóttir and Dögg Guðmundsdóttir took the more literal approach in turning fish into lamps for their Uggi lights.

Each light is made using Iceland's traditional method of preserving whole fish, and saw the duo install lamps inside the dried skins of large cod measuring over a metre in length.

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Basic House in Bangkok exhibits owner's car collection

A glass-walled garage and courtyard form the focal point of Basic House, a residence by Brownhouses in Bangkok that is designed to be deliberately simple.

The slender white house was completed for Korn Thongtour and Nartrudee Treesaksrisaku, founders of Thai studio Brownhouses, to accommodate their growing family.

It is distinguished by bright white finishes and simple form, with the only ornament being their own possessions including a car collection housed in an indoor garage.

"[Thongtour] wanted to pick the most mundane materials but make it look beautiful and elegant," explained the studio's architecture assistant Kyrah Chotitawan.

"He wanted to show the beauty of how simple and ordinary materials can work together to create beautiful forms," she told Dezeen. "The basic house is an ordinary home with special and unique qualities tailored to its inhabitants."

Basic House has two storeys that slot into its slender site. It measures nine metres on its smallest side, and has a length of 30 metres.

The external shape of the house is modelled on a typical child's drawing of a house – a square with a pitched roof.

"The design of the building came from the simplest childhood inspiration of how children draw a 'basic house' – the triangle roof, rectangular door and the windows alongside it," said the studio.

Teamed with a bright white finishes throughout, Brownhouses said that this ensured a "clean-cut" finish that was "true to [their] minimal roots".

Inside, the pared-back aesthetic is enhanced by disguising all of the dwelling's functional and storage areas behind walls. Similarly, circulation is positioned along one side to negate the need for corridors and help create open and uncluttered interiors.

The home's focal point is ground floor, which contains an open courtyard and the internal glass-walled garage. Brownhouses designed the garage to exhibit Thongtour's vast collection of cars, and provide views of it throughout the home.

"The exposed garage allows [Thongtour] to exhibit the beauty and elegance of his cars," explained Chotitawan.

"But it is also for a feeling of constant interaction with his personal collection throughout the home, as he goes about his daily routine."

Meanwhile, the courtyard is intended to encourage the family to interact wherever they are in the house by allowing them to see each other from either end.

It is also establishes a connection with nature and the outside, featuring a large tree that extends out of the house through an open roof that floods the space with natural light.

Photo is by Brownhouses.

Also on the ground floor is a work space, positioned adjacent to the garage and a staircase that leads to the first floor.

The first floor hosts an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area, alongside a playroom for the children that hides a second staircase leading up into a small attic space. It is complete with one giant bedroom shared by the family.

Similar projects to Basic House on Dezeen include a white bunker-like residence in Takamatsu, Japan, which has limited openings to draw attention to the owner's sports car.

In Barcelona, Cadaval & Solà-Morales transformed an old theatre into a home that features an indoor parking space where inhabitants can openly display their classic car "like a sculpture".

Photography is by Wison Tungthunya unless stated.

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Project credits:

Architect: Brownhouses
Lead architect: Korn Thongtour
Interior designer: Nartrudee Treesaksrisakul
Project architect: Kasideh Hoo
Design team: Brownhouses
Clients: Korn Thongtour, Nartrudee Treesaksrisakul
Engineering: Ronnarit Kongkiatikul
Consultants: Brownhouses

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Bowen Liu Studio designs furniture collection for imaginary painter

A rust-coloured leather nightstand and desk with looping wooden legs are among the furniture pieces in this collection by Brooklyn's Bowen Liu Studio.

Bower Liu Studio has created an imaginary painter's room, decorated with paintings, tapestries and jars of paintbrushes, to form the setting to launch its new series.

The backdrop to A Painter's Room is a space with white-painted brickwork walls and wooden flooring

Photos of the showcase called A Painter's Room present the collection in a space with white-painted brick walls and wooden flooring.

Among the items on show are the Yan platform bed and Yan nightstand made from walnut. The headboard is formed from several slabs of the dark wood with a large cutout at the top.

Gatsby Credenza references the prohibition era with a "speakeasy" door on its rear side for hiding liquor products

The matching wooden frame for the mattress also forms a shelf along the bed's perimeter.

Covered in cognac leather, the Yan nightstand has peg legs and is fronted by a drawer and open bottom shelf.

A wooden mattress frame wraps around the Yan platform bed also creating a shelf on the perimeter

Also in the collection is the Peizi desk, which has a thin silhouette accented by a pair of tall looping legs. It features a flat surface table on top of a compartment fronted by a small drawer.

To accompany with tables, the studio designed the Feast Chairs with open backs and angled arm rests. The seats are upholstered with black leather.

The headboard is constructed from several slabs of dark wood and features a rectangular cutout along its top

The collection also includes a long cabinet fronted with a sliding black door accented with brass handles. Called the Gatsby Credenza, it is intended to pay homage to the prohibition era through a "speakeasy" door for hiding liquor products that attaches to its backside.

In addition to walnut, all of the pieces can be made in maple, white oak, cherry or ash wood.

To complete the space, Bowen Liu Studio included three paintings by local artist Aesther Chang, who took cues from work by poet Edgar Allan Poe to create the pieces for the fictional painter.

Cognac leather upholsters the top of the Yan nightstand

"Aesther Chang constructs the soul of the 'painter' in the room, presenting three paintings inspired by the poet Edgar Allan Poe that offer various internal and external perspectives from the point of view of the imagined painter," Bowen Liu Studio said.

Artwork shown alongside the furniture include a tapestry by Hangzhou fashion designer Lang Jin

The paintings are teamed with a boro-embroidered tapestry by Hangzhou fashion designer Lang Jin. The square textile was constructed using the traditional patchwork method and comprises dozens of plaid, floral and velvet fabric remnants sewn together.

Brooklyn design studio Radnor also recently launched a furniture collection that features several wood objects including a bed with a rattan headboard and curving cane-like legs and a round coffee table with visible joists.

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