A Group Of Architects Are Building Quarantine Facilities With A Combined 1,000-bed Capacity

William Ti and his fellow architects are already halfway into their initiative

- Angela Casco

Not all men on a mission are astronauts. Sometimes, they’re architects and builders.

As the number of local coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases continues to rise rapidly, a group of architects, engineers, and builders are racing against time to create more spaces that can accommodate patients that will decongest packed hospitals and, with hope, help flatten the curve.

That’s exactly what William Ti, principal architect at WTA Design + Architecture, and fellow volunteers are doing by designing and putting up makeshift quarantine facilities near hospitals across Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

The goal? Build 62 pandemic-ready tents with a combined bed capacity of 1,000.

How it started

Setting such a target number was not the priority for Ti and the team—at least early into the planning and building stage of the initiative. The focus was to address the overflow of Covid19-positive patients.

While conversing with Dr. Glenn Angeles and other friends about the novel coronavirus, why it was spreading quickly, the fate of sick people being turned away from hospitals operating at maximum capacity, and how that poses danger to any person’s immediate family, he remembered the pavilion his studio designed and built at a design festival in Intramuros.