• Ekincioglu, M. (speaker), 2020, Public Health in Architecture for Current and Future Pandemic Situations, online lecture in between Boston and Istanbul, Nisantasi University, Department of Architecture, November 25.
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Since the coronavirus outbreak was declared by the World Health Organization as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, public health has become one of the most urgent issues not only in architecture education and practice but also in our daily lives. It seems to be one of the vital topics for all of us even in the post-pandemic world as well. Without doubt, architecture is a very significant part of pandemic solutions and emergency preparedness from hospitals to our classrooms and homes. Based on our unprecedented and global experience, my online lecture brought some essential principles and recommendations by leading institutions, organizations and experts on infectious diseases (such as the American Institute of Architects, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Society of Healthcare Engineering, ASHE, Facilities Guideline Institute, American College of Healthcare Architects, the American Microbiology Society and the American Cleaning Institute, Boston Dynamics, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, etc.) into focus in order to be able to reduce and prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in architectural spaces and the built environment.

Focusing on a. essential and b. recent knowledge resources, surveys, and projects by several leading institutions and organizations in architecture, public health and more specifically on infectious diseases, I introduced, elaborated and discussed following four topics to architecture students at Nisantasi University in order to support and contribute to their architecture design projects and (research) studies:

• Introduction of “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” and its knowledge resources on healthcare facility types,

• “Negative Pressure Rooms” (Airborne Infection Isolation Room, AIIR) to isolate people infected by to isolate patients with airborne contagious diseases such as: influenza (flu), tuberculosis, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV), and Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),

• Recent reports and knowledge resources by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) on some essential architectural design principles and physical space arrangements to protect people from COVID-19,

• Recent technological tendencies, approaches, methods and applications for public health, such as telehealth, telemedicine, artificial intelligence, machine learning and their influences on architecture design thinking and practice.

Needless to say, in this emerging world, architecture has an inspiring potential to create positive effects on health outcomes, and open up new dialogues between itself and the society at large. More importantly, young generation’s architecture education is the core context to stimulate awareness of this new path.

The PowerPoint presentation of this lecture is available in my personal archive.

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Ekincioglu, M. (speaker), 2020, Public Health in Architecture for Current and Future Pandemic Situations, November 25.