WTA Design 60 Emergency Quarantine Facilities to Fight COVID-19

As hospitals around the world are reaching their capacity, the architecture and design community is developing new alternatives to fight COVID-19.

In order to build 60 Emergency Quarantine Facilities (EQF), WTA was inspired by their pavilion developed last year, part of the Anthology Festival. A viable quarantine structure, the Boysen Pavilion “embodied speed, scalability and simplicity in its structure”.

Principal Architect of WTA Architecture and Design Studio William Ti and Dr. Glenn Angeles collaborated with Maj. Carmelo Jaluague and Maj. Banjo Torres Badayo to mobilize the construction of an Emergency Quarantine Facility.

Basing their design on their adaptable Boysen Pavilion, repurposed into a 6m x 26m rectilinear facility equipped with 15 beds, two toilets, a shower, a testing box, and disinfecting areas, WTA is creating short-term relief spaces. The temporary structures, aiming to augment the capacity of hospitals, are built with wood and enveloped in plastic, facilitating the addition of more modules. In fact, they can be replicated anywhere throughout the country.

Planned to limit cross-contamination, the EFQ design generated designated entries for patients and healthcare workers. Moreover, the airflow is directed downwind from front to rear to prevent recirculation. With drawings of EQF made public, any community can duplicate the facility and have a quick response.

The first iteration was built in 5 days in the Manila Naval Hospital, and “has since grown into a network of 60 EQFs, with its first batch of 22 sites swiftly funded by people from the private sector”. Targeting to house a total of over 1000 beds, the 60 EFQs are being built from the 29th of March until the 20th of April.