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Creative Studio Innovates Products To Beat COVID-19, Shares The Designs For Free
By Mikelle Leow, 12 May 2020
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Images by STUCK Design and featured with permission
Compelled by the pressing problems and shortages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, Singaporean multidisciplinary creative agency STUCK Design racked its brains to innovate unusual design solutions to fight the coronavirus.
In the past month, the studio’s 24 designers got busy in coming up with surprising yet affordable and feasible ideas aimed at solving tough problems in the current medical climate, and eventually shared them with hospitals in Singapore for free.
These include a lightweight and flexible aerosol guard, door hangers that double as reminders to stay inside, and a mask sterilizer created using a food storage container you’re likely to already have at home.
STUCK Design has also released the concepts under the COVID-19 Open License, the Creative Commons’ pledge to make the development of new medication and healthcare equipment combating COVID-19 open-access.
Check out some solutions from this stellar project, and browse through more here. For more “smart, sensible, and surprising” design solutions, follow STUCK Design via its website, as well as its Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube channels.
Parashield
Image by STUCK Design and featured with permission
Conceptualized alongside a major hospital in Singapore, the Parashield is the team’s lightweight, flexible and low-cost answer to rigid and bulky aerosol boxes used to perform medical procedures on COVID-19 patients.
The tent-like shield is constructed with soft plastic walls for “maximum, unobstructed visibility” and extolled with a steel frame to help it stay up when accidentally bumped into. The design is currently still being experimented on, and the studio will release more details like setup instructions when it is finalized.
COVID-19 door hangers
Image by STUCK Design and featured with permission
While frontline workers pull their weight to treat patients of the coronavirus, the general public is urged to do their part by staying at home. However, the design agency acknowledges that repeatedly reminding hesitant family members to be socially responsible can get “awkward and confrontational,” and has thus created door hangers to instead “nudge” loved ones into staying in when they’re about to open the door.
A series of WHO-adhering graphics and messages have been created to address family members of various age groups, and they’re all available for download, but the studio has also prepared a blank template just in case you have a specific stay-home message in mind.
Gladbox mask sterilizer
Image by STUCK Design and featured with permission
While it’s not recommended to reuse disposable face masks, a shortage of them sometimes makes it necessary to. There’s a hack by Hawaiian medical worker Matt Lee Tom and Vanderbilt University that utilizes Glad food boxes to store masks more hygienically, allowing mask owners to put on the gear without touching the contaminated exterior. On the flip side, the inner side of the masks might risk getting contaminated by infectious elements left in the box from the front side with this trick.
The designers decided to improve on this DIY concept by changing just one thing: the lid, which they imagine to be a UV sterilizer.
Image by STUCK Design and featured with permission
X-Hood wearable isolation shell
Image by STUCK Design and featured with permission
Healthcare professionals and COVID-19 patients shouldn’t just rely on face masks, which don’t offer full protection against coughs and sneezes. While wearable barriers or hoods are safer, they can also be uncomfortable. The studio’s solution is the X-Hood, a containment hood that stays comfortable with additional breathing space while being elegant and lightweight.
The team focused on keeping production and deployment for this design quick and pocket-friendly, and zeroed in on ways to shave off unnecessary manufacturing steps since there is a time constraint. Its economical properties can be seen in the main body itself, which is made up of “easily produced sheet elements in plastic and fabrics.”
The hood gives the wearer more breathing room, allowing their coughs or sneezes to “dissipate and slow down,” while the fabric at the back additionally serves as a filter. An added touch of fabric apertures at the side gives spectacle-wearing patients greater adjustability for eyewear.
[Images by STUCK Design and featured with permission]
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