Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 12) — A group of architects is building inexpensive quarantine facilities to help in the government’s fight against COVID-19.
Speaking to CNN Philippines Sunday, William Ti Jr., the principal architect of WTA Architecture and Design Studio said, “We’re building these emergency facilities to augment the capacity of hospitals. We realized that most hospitals don’t have enough space or they need space not just for quarantine, also maybe for their healthcare workers.”
Ti says each facility costs between ₱430,000 (for units without airconditioning ) and ₱550,000 (for units that have airconditioning) and would take about five days to build.
He added it would not take much manpower or need much specialization to build.
“The idea is speed and scalability, being able to get this out to as many places as fast as possible, and being able to build it cheaply and quickly,” he said.
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Ti said the idea to build the facilities came after he and a friend talked about how hospitals have been unable to accommodate more patients.
“We came up with this idea because we built a pavillion similar to this last February at a festival, and we thought about having something that can be easily built by most people, we don’t need special laborers, we don’t need special tools. It’s just simple hand tools and with very little manpower,” he said.
To date, Ti said 11 sites have been finished and they are in the process of building 31 more.
“We’re looking at finishing everything, a total of 65 sites, by April 20. We’ll be accommodating 1,000 beds by then,” he added.
Ti also said they have received requests to have these facilities built in other areas.
