PANDEMIC/antiPANDEMIC

link for presentation: video of AIDS attacking a human white blood cell.

PANDEMIC

The vastness universe is built upon microscopic particles. Life on Earth is little more than a series of perfect combinations of these particles, and death on Earth is a result of the destruction or incapacitation of the most vital of these particles.

Often, death may come from the inside out and grow from microscopic to MEGA. I'm concentrating on this idea: the MEGA effect of something that is entirely microscopic. This is a storm that arises from inside of people, from a cellular level, and overtakes their bodies and eventually claims their lives, and on the cellular level it spreads throughout the population, claiming lives in masses.



This is the AIDS PANDEMIC. This project focuses on the battle against a MEGA condition that is currently inhabiting an estimated 35 million lives. (To see a more detailed post showing mappings regarding the AIDS-infected population and the availability and prevalence of treatments, click here).

[[any images may be clicked for a larger view]]

The mapping on the left shows a decrease in the population when AIDS cases
are subtracted out (those uninfected are portrayed by the white mesh).
The map on the right shows (in blue) the areas where more than 10%
of the population is able to receive the treatment medications.
The network in the map on the right is the corporate, production and sales
network of Glax0SmithKline, the company that makes the drugs to treat AIDS.

When these areas of treatment are pushed together along with their GSK manufacturing plants, you can see from this MEGAcontinent that many of the manufacturing plants are located outside of areas that receive the bulk of the treatment. This means that while Jamaica, for instance, might have a plant to produce these drugs, they are being sold to other countries.




antiPANDEMIC

If architecture was the cure for AIDS, what would it be?

What is AIDS, formally and conceptually? This video shows the AIDS virus infecting a lymphocyte (human white blood cell). The virus enters the cell, causes it to empty its contents, and then uses it as a host to do the same to other lymphocytes, and so on. These still images of the video should give an understanding of what is happening.




The drugs produced by GSK (primarily lamiduvine and zadovudine) help to weaken the host cell and slow the spread of AIDS.

Attack/counterAttack.

When AIDS spreads slowly, it prolongs the life of the AIDS patient, increasing chances that the patient will be alive when the cure might be discovered. The smallest chemical bonds in a pill has the power to prolong the lives of 35 million people; the problem is that they can't all get it.

While the problem is very heavily political and economic, if there were an efficient and effective way to spread prevention methods and knowledge, care and comfort, and the medications themselves, political and economic support from governments and organizations could be more likely.

I could not help but think of Archigram's Plug-In City; towers of units that are transported between each other on a mega network. These are some conceptual collages of Archigram's work combined with my mappings.

What if architecture was an infection?

What if healthcare was flexible? What if it were made up of parts - cells - that could go virtually anywhere, and contain what is needed to combat AIDS? These cells could "plug" into certain locations, serve their purposes, and then be taken away to be refilled, repaired, or deconstructed. What if architecture took on the form of the AIDS virus for the purposes of fighting the AIDS virus, infecting the cities with health from the inside out and then passing it onto other cities?

a first attempt at a city scale






These images depict the AIDS treatment cells being "plugged" into a city.

MEGAhealth

I propose a hierarchical network of the GlaxoSmithKline company's AIDS division. From the headquarters (located in London) comes knowledge, technology, and the patent on the drugs. All of these are intangible and immaterial. These things reach the manufacturing sites, hubs, where the immaterial network is materialized. Cells are constructed here, as well as the drugs and equipment to go in them. Hospital rooms, information cells, AIDS pharmacies and AIDS testing supplies are all made and contained into the cells.




MEGAhealth can be applied in virtually any architectural, geographical, or sociopolitical situation. It is to be versatile and flexible and free. I chose these three sites for the following reasons:



1. Cape Town, South Africa is already a site for a GSK manufacturing plant, but I believe it is a good hub because it has the best resources in the southern region of Africa. The transportation and healthcare infrastructures are well in tact. There is a large amount of class separation, as in most cities in Africa, but MEGAhealth is made to go anywhere, for anyone. Cape Town will serve as the hub for these purposes.

2. Mesaru, Lesotho is the capital of Lesotho. It is small and the poverty level is high, not to mention a very high demand for AIDS treatment. It is very accessible - with a main railroad, a river, and an international airport. The healthcare system is out of date and low on funding.

3. Omusati, Namibia is an area in the wildest part of Namibia. There is a freight road that passes through it, crossing the entire country's width and connecting Omusati to a port. AIDS is prevalent in this area, and there is one missionary-run hospital with very out-dated technology.


The form I came up for the manufacturing plant with is made to mimic a cell in its lysing state. The contents are maintained within walls, and the contents spill out to go infect the rest of the city and the other cities.






There are roads or railroads that come out from the plant. The idea is that these pods can infiltrate the modern transportation processes, and the transportation network is somewhat virtual in that sense.



This virtual meganetwork - the bloodstream on which the treatment travels - is made up of the tiny components of modern transportation modes.



These units are shown here plugged into (first) a hospital in Cape Town, (second) a hospital in Mesaru, and (third) a framework built to contain them in a place (Omasuti) where there is no means to contain them.






These images are the small parts of the whole: particles causing a MEGA effect. In the same way that AIDS conquers the body and spreads across the globe, the GSK network might conquer a city and spread as well - spreading preventional knowledge, treatment, and care and comfort to those who cannot currently benefit from these things.

This is fighting the PANDEMIC with an antiPANDEMIC.