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The architect Stefano Boeri has designed prefabricated wooden and fabric pavilions, which will be set up to house Covid-19 vaccination stations in squares throughout Italy from the first half of January.
Around 1,500 of the structures will be installed over the next few months under the direction of Domenico Arcuri, the country’s special commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency.
These will act as distribution sites for the 3.4 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which Italy is expected to receive in January after suffering the most coronavirus deaths of any European nation this year.
To facilitate rapid deployment, Boeri designed the pavilion’s circular base and frame to be precast from structural wood. This skeleton is enclosed in a waterproof textile envelope, which according to the architect is fully recyclable.
Inside, the spaces are separated by a system of flexible textile walls, also prefabricated and designed to offer transparency while absorbing sound.
“The Polytechnic of Milan will start work on a prototype in order to optimize the prefabrication so that the pavilions can be easily and quickly placed throughout Italy,” Boeri told Dezeen.
“The main reason, of course, is to increase capacity, speed up the vaccination process and reach the entire Italian population,” he continued. “Of course, providing a temporary pavilion in public areas can also help spread the message: let’s get vaccinated.”
“The public life of Italy is in our squares. We need to ensure that these pavilions are accessible, comfortable and places that the community considers, for a period of time, part of their lives in order to defeat Covid-19.”
Designed in collaboration with a team of consultants, the pavilion is organized around a central core, housing service areas for healthcare workers, including restrooms, changing rooms and warehouses.
To mitigate the environmental impact of installing a large number of temporary pavilions, Boeri designed them so that they can be easily dismantled and reused elsewhere.
Furthermore, the structure is intended to be energy self-sufficient with a ring of solar panels on the roof designed to provide enough electricity to meet the needs of the entire pavilion.
A large pink primrose will be stamped on the exterior walls and ceiling of the structure, allowing Italy’s historic squares to “visually bloom” once more.
“With the image of a spring flower, we wanted to create an architecture that conveyed a symbol of serenity and regeneration,” said Boeri.
“Getting vaccinated will be an act of civic responsibility, love for others and the rediscovery of life. If this virus has locked us up in hospitals and homes, the vaccine will put us back in contact with life and nature that surrounds us ”.
Boeri’s flower graphic design will also act as a logo for the country’s communication campaign around vaccination. Under the slogan “With a flower, Italy comes back to life”, it will appear in government messages, as well as in the “information totems” that will be installed in public spaces to educate citizens about the process.
This weekend, Italy overtook the United Kingdom to become the country with the highest death toll from coronavirus in Europe, with a total of 64,520 people.
Commissioner Arcuri has said that by September 2021, a significant number of Italians who want to be vaccinated against the virus should have received their vaccinations.
With this hope, the Salone del Mobile fair in Italy recently announced that the event would move from its usual hours from April to September.
The architecture practice NBBJ has also proposed the creation of prefabricated service clinics, where patients could be treated and vaccinated against coronavirus without leaving their cars.
Located in existing hospital parking lots, these would accelerate the deployment of the vaccine while allowing visitors to maintain a safe social distance from other patients.
