Converting convention centres into coronavirus hospitals is the most efficient way to increase intensive-care capacity, according to James Hepburn of architecture and engineering firm BDP, which helped convert London's ExCel centre into the 4,000-bed NHS Nightingale.
Conference centres around the world, including the ExCel in London, the Javits Center in New York and McCormick Place in Chicago, are being converted into temporary hospitals to treat patients with coronavirus. With case numbers on the rise, countries are under pressure to rapidly increase intensive care capacity, something that firm BDP believes is best done by converting existing buildings, according to Hepburn.
"The less that has to be built or procured, the quicker things can happen," BDP building engineering services principal James Hepburn told Dezeen. "Solutions have to be simple, repeatable and modular."
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