Burning Man is continuing with plans to host its summer festival despite a number of large-scale events like the Olympics being postponed because of coronavirus.

Burning Man announced on 20 March that it has decided not to cancel its festival, which is to take place in five months in Nevada, in response to the spread of Covid-19.

"We believe the responsible course is to proceed with caution and not make a premature decision one way or the other," said Burning Man in the statement.

"For now, we are going to continue to thoughtfully and mindfully prepare for Black Rock City 2020."

"In the current climate of uncertainty it is simply too soon to tell"

The week-long event is set to take place in the Nevada desert from 30 August to 7 September. Burning Man has decided to wait and see how the global pandemic unfolds in the following months before changing these plans.

"In the current climate of uncertainty it is simply too soon to tell," it said. "There are some indications that the virus may peak in the next couple of months and then begin to subside, while others believe the pandemic could have a much longer timeline. So much is beyond our powers to predict or control."

Burning Man has taken some measures regarding the recent outbreak in the US. Several regional events have been cancelled or rescheduled, and its three offices are closed and employees are working remote.

"We are taking this situation very seriously and taking proactive steps to ensure our staff and community are as safe as possible," Burning Man said. "We will continue to consider the facts and make thoughtful, informed decisions about next steps."

Events including the Olympics and Glastonbury are cancelled

Burning Man has already chosen its 2020 temple, which will form the centrepiece of the temporary Black Rock City. The design, created by Colorado architect Renzo Verbeck and artist Sylvia Adrienne Lisse, comprises an eight-pointed angular structure.

While Burning Man is set to still take place in August, a majority of other large-scale events due to happen this summer have been rescheduled because of coronavirus. These include Tokyo's summer Olympics, which is now postponed until 2021.

California's music festival Coachella, which was set for April, has been rescheduled for October, and the UK's Glastonbury music festival in June is now cancelled.

Major architecture and design events postponed are Milan's Salone del Mobile and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Visit Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of affected events.

Photograph by Duncan Rawlinson.

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American studio Roger Ferris + Partners has tucked a bar-shaped volume that contains a swimming pool into a grassy hill overlooking a tidal estuary in Connecticut.

Located in the village of Westport, the building is nestled into a property that faces the Long Island Sound. The owners desired a pool house that would serve as a quiet counterpart to their shingle-style house nearby.

Local practice Roger Ferris + Partners created a long bar that is tucked into a grassy berm, making it barely visible from certain vantage points. A green roof further helps the building merge with the landscape.

"Set into a subtle incline just before the land drops off to meet the beachfront, it is almost invisible as one approaches from the main entrance of the estate," the studio said.

The front door is on the north side, where two concrete retaining walls fan outward to form an entrance. The "only hint of what lies below" is a series of skylights rising above the hill, Roger Ferris + Partners added.

A long, glass wall on the southern elevation delivers expansive views of the water and ushers in daylight. A patio is sheltered by an aluminium trellis, which casts dramatic shadows throughout the day.

The interior is divided into several zones. The eastern side has a living space with contemporary furnishings and a colourful tapestry by the British artist Grayson Perry.

A glazed partition separates this sitting area from the building's centrepiece — a turquoise pool stretching 75 feet (28 metres) in length.

The indoor swimming area features light grey flooring and walls wrapped in pale Douglas fir. Natural illumination is supplemented by recessed ceiling lights.

On the north, which is embedded in the hill, the team placed a dressing room, a bathroom, a kitchenette and laundry facilities.

The project is complete with geothermal heating, and all mechanical elements are intended to preserve the building's minimal aesthetic.

"Geothermal heating and cooling systems avert the need for chimneys or any other visible infrastructure," the studio said. "All vents, tracks and mechanicals and cleverly hidden to keep the form as crisp, clean and minimal as possible."

Roger Ferris + Partners has completed other projects in the region, including a wood-clad house in the Hamptons, a holiday dwelling in Rhode Island, and an artist's retreat in Connecticut that resembles a red barn.

Photography is by Paúl Rivera.

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Dublin firm Grafton Architects has designed a timber research centre for the University of Arkansas' architecture school, which will mark its first project in the US when complete.

Grafton Architects, which is led by 2020 Pritzker Prize winners Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, and local firm Modus Studio have designed the building for the school's campus in Fayetteville.

The team was announced last week as the winners of a competition for the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation project, organised by the university's Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.

The design comprises a timber construction with a zig-zagging roofline that staggers down from approximately six stories at its highest height to one level in the rear.

A render shows the wood construction will be left exposed inside, with skylights bringing in daylight.

"The basic idea of this new Anthony Timberlands Center is that the building itself is a story book of timber," said Farrell. "We want people to experience the versatility of timber, both as the structural 'bones' and the enclosing 'skin' of this new building."

The university building will be used for timber and wood design initiatives within the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. It will serve as the home for a new graduate programme in timber and wood design, and house the school's design-build programme and fabrication technologies laboratories.

"The building itself is a teaching tool, displaying the strength, colour, grain, texture and beauty of the various timbers used," Farrel added.

Grafton Architects and Modus Studio's design was approved by the university's board of trustees after a committee and an external evaluation team selected the team ahead of six finalists.

The shortlist was chosen from 69 firms that entered the competition and included Copenhagen firm Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter and Tokyo firm Shigeru Ban Architects were among the shortlist.

"The selection of Grafton Architects, in partnership with Modus Studio, for the Anthony Timberlands Center project immediately magnifies the already immense significance of the Fay Jones School's current and future initiatives in the further development of timber and wood innovation for the state of Arkansas," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the architecture school.

"This building helps us think about the future optimistically, where the use of timber with all its possibilities, becomes real, useful and hopefully loved," Farrell and McNamara added.

Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation will be built along Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard in the south of Fayetteville. Once completed, it will be Grafton Architect's first building in the US.

Farrell and McNamara were announced as the 2020 laureates of the Pritzker Prize earlier this month. They are the fourth and fifth women to be named winners of the prestigious architecture award, following Zaha Hadid who was the winner in 2004; Kazuyo Sejima who won alongside Ryue Nishizawa in 2010, and Carme Pigem who won with Rafael Aranda and Ramón Vilalta in 2017.

MacKeith said the choice of the firm for the university building provides an important example of gender equality for students.

"As an accomplished, recognised women-led practice, Grafton Architects confirms for all our students that the design professions are equally theirs in which to find their identities and to realise their potentials," he said.

Other projects by Grafton Architects are a medical school at the University of Limerick and a facility for the Universita Luigi Bocconi, both of which are two of the key projects the studio highlighted in a Dezeen interview.

Images are by Grafton Architects.

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Infographics that reporter Harry Stevens created to explain how coronavirus spreads have become the most-viewed story ever published on The Washington Post.

Stevens created the infographics for The Washington Post to demonstrate the impact that different conditions, known as network effects, can have on the spread of an imaginary virus in a fake town of 200 residents.

The spread is explored under a free-for-all, in which residents don't change behaviour, quarantine and self-isolation to show that the latter is the most successful way to contain the fictional disease called "simulitis".

"Even though they're very simple simulations, they help people understand how network effects work," Stevens told Dezeen. "When you see it on a computer screen, it suddenly becomes very clear, even though the simulations are so simple."

The Washington Post published the article Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially and how to "flatten the curve" on 14 March and made it available to read free of charge. It is now the newspaper's most-read online story.

Stevens believes the story was so popular because it helps people realise that their actions can have a positive impact amid the coronavirus crisis and makes them feel less powerless.

"One of the things that my friends who have read it have told me was that it actually made them feel hopeful, which is not a result that I anticipated," Stevens said. "But I can understand because people are feeling really anxious right now and what the simulations show is that by adapting our behaviour, we actually can hopefully slow this thing down."

"When people are feeling scared and powerless, it's useful to know that there's something that they can control," the graphics reporter added. "They can control their own behaviour and that will hopefully help to see people's lives and end this sooner."

The graphics comprise dots in different colours, with a green hue used to represent healthy, an orange hue for the sick and a pink hue for recovered people. The dots move around according to the different conditions and change colour as they hit each other, representing the spread of the virus.

Stevens made the visuals using JavaScripts codes so that they start moving about as readers scroll down the article. He developed the idea to follow another model he had been working on some years before.

"I had been experimenting with collision detection about a year ago, which was just like getting circles to move around on a screen, and then when they get near each other to bounce away in the other direction," he said. "That was part of the inspiration for this."

"I never thought of it in terms of modeling a disease or even trying to simulate a network effect," Stevens added. "It was just like trying to figure out how to get these circles to bounce off of each other."

Stevens chose to base the graphics on a fake virus after consulting with Lauren Gardner, a scientist who had been producing models of outcomes of the coronavirus pandemic with a team of PhDs at Johns Hopkins University. Gardner told him it would be "too complicated" to replicate something for an interactive magazine article.

"Speaking to her and understanding how difficult it is to forecast the real disease, is what encouraged me to make a fake disease," he said. "They have to account for so many complex variables, like how people use airports and how much they travel and various potential health policies that might be put into place and so on and so forth."

In the article, a graphic grows above each circle graphic to represent how the condition could help to "flatten the curve" – a term used to describe slowing down the rate of infection to lessen the pressure on medical services.

The first is the free-for-all, where one resident is infected and roams unawares, subsequently infecting a high number of others and causing a spike in cases. This then reduces as residents become immune.

The second network effect, attempted quarantine, is modelled on the forced quarantine that was implemented in China's Hubei province during outbreaks. It shows that it is almost impossible to keep sick people away from the healthy.

The final two present different extents of social distancing, which promotes keeping two metres away from anyone not in the same household.

In the moderate version, one-quarter of the population are allowed to move, while the more severe version halves this amount to just one eighth. The experiment shows the latter to be the most successful in "flattening the curve".

Stevens' infographics are among a number of informative visuals that creatives have developed to circulate advice on how to slow the spread of coronavirus, which was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.

Cartoonist Toby Morris and microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles also created a series of graphics to explain the importance of social distancing during the pandemic. Their series went viral after they were published by a website in New Zealand.

Images are courtesy of The Washington Post.

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California company Dvele has designed prefabricated, off-grid houses with solar panels that allow people to stop relying on "antiquated power grids".

Dvele – named after the Norwegian word for a dwelling – has been selling prefabricated homes since it was established in 2017 in San Diego. It has recently made the switch so that all of its models are self-powered.

The homes are intended to serve as a "solution that addresses climate change and power grid resilience" according to Dvele.

Devel offers 11 residential designs, ranging from a tiny home to a four-bedroom dwelling. The homes are modern in style with a flat roof and minimal ornamentation. Layouts can be customised as needed, and the starting cost is $190,000 (£163,500).

All systems are powered by electricity, and the new designs come with 28 solar panels that can generate at least 6,400 kilowatt hours per year for a California building. Energy that is not used right away can be stored in a battery.

"A Dvele home is capable of utilising its solar array and battery backup system to make them fully grid-independent and insulated from the inconveniences and safety risks associated with long-term power outages, not to mention significant financial savings," the company said.

Dvele co-founder and CEO Kurt Goodjohn added that self-powered homes, such as those offered by Dvele, help address the issue of "an antiquated power grid that will take many years and billions of dollars to fix".

The new designs coincide with a new California building code that requires newly constructed homes to come equipped with photovoltaic panels. The mandate was passed in 2018 and went into effect on 1 January this year.

In addition to being able to generate and store clean energy, Dvele emphasised that its homes are designed to reduce power usage. Combined, these factors enable them to operate independently of the electric grid.

"The solar mandate is a great step in the right direction for creating more green energy, but it fails to solve the entire problem, which also includes the inefficient management and use of energy in most homes by our antiquated power grids," said Goodjohn.

Another key feature of a Dvele home is a high-performance building envelope. The framing system consists of kiln-dried wooden studs measuring two by six feet (61 by 183 centimetres). Engineered wooden trusses comprise the floor and ceiling structure.

Walls are made of structural-grade plywood and high-performance insulation with an R-value of 16. An air and weather barrier is applied to seal up any openings. For the roof, the company uses structurally insulated panels, commonly referred to as SIPs.

There are several options for exterior cladding, including corrugated metal panels and tongue-and-groove wooden siding.

The homes come with energy-efficient appliances, such as induction stovetops and electric hot water heaters. Other features are multi-paned windows, in-wall monitors for detecting moisture, and air and water filtration systems.

Dvele claims its building process is more sustainable and expedient than traditional construction methods, as do most other prefab housing manufacturers.

To help reduce construction waste and unforeseen delays, the buildings compose of modules that are fabricated in a foundry and then transported to the site. A crane is used to secure the modules to a pre-built foundation – a process that takes under 24 hours.

"The final steps involve stitching the modules together, patching drywall, attaching the roof and connecting utilities," said Brandon Weiss, Dvele's chief innovation officer.

The company said its overarching goal is to bring "energy independence to homeowners" and to provide housing solutions in an era of climate change.

Designs for off-grid buildings are emerging as climate change and natural disasters intensify around the globe. Other self-sufficient designs include a rustic dwelling in Chile that is lifted above the ground, a black cabin in Upstate New York by Marc Thorpe, and a prefab residence on a Brazilian farm by Studio MK27.

Photographs are by Dvele.

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Tiled walls, purple carpeting and leathery cabinets are among the features Crosby Studios founder Harry Nuriev and partner Tyler Billinger have included in the renovation of their New York apartment.

The designers, who run Crosby Studios together, used bold colours, geometric shapes and eclectic materials to bring their personal styles into the residence in the city's NoLita neighbourhood.

"When designing our own home, we were really able to infuse our style into the space," Nuriev told Dezeen. "It's 100 per cent us, with zero restrictions."

The designers, who often experiment with vibrant colours in their furniture and interior projects, added touches of violet throughout the interior.

"We consider ultraviolet to be the supporting colour in its design," added Billinger, who is Crosby Studios CEO. "Our favourite colour at the time the violet shade is playful, optimistic, cheerful, and regal."

"If we redid the apartment today, it would probably be neon green, Harry's latest colour obsession," Billinger continued.

The residence has two floors with the living room on the lower level and bedroom set above.

Purple carpeting, an armchair and shelving units are used to contrast against the grey used on the walls, couch and curtains in the lounge.

"We wanted a space that was not only elegant, but also liveable – we wanted to create a cosy sanctuary, which is why we used a warm grey as the base colour, and a vibrant purple as the supporting to give it that Crosby signature boldness."

Ceramic square tiles designed in collaboration with Mumbai design studio Hatsu cover the floors and walls throughout the interior. Nuriev and Billinger said they took cues from competition swimming pools to design them.

A number of Nuriev's previous installations and collections are used to furnish the space. They include the abstractly shaped purple bookcases, shelving units and tables decorated with recurring hand shapes that he created as part of a collaboration with fashion brand Opening Ceremony.

All of the furniture and fixtures used throughout the interiors were custom-built for the project, including the lighting, kitchen cabinets, dining table and bathroom vanity.

In the kitchen, the cabinets are upholstered with white vegan leather that the designers used on other elements of the design, including the gold bed headboard and silver couch.

The white tilework is continued on the bedroom walls. Purple pillows and a set of circular side tables add colour to the otherwise stark interior. A small alcove set in the corner of the room creates an additional resting area.

A box-like basin fits inside a cylindrical frame to form a sink vanity in the bathroom. Tapware and faucets in the bathroom and kitchen were designed with Dorf Australia.

Other features of the design are the spiralling metal staircase, an open shelving unit for displaying shoes and several large rectangular cutouts filled with transparent violet-hued glass that reflect the colour across its surroundings.

Nuriev is a Russian designer who founded interior architecture and furniture design firm Crosby Studios in Moscow in 2014, and is now based in New York.

His other projects include a plastic sofa stuffed with discarded Balenciaga clothes and a pink restaurant in Moscow.

Photography is by Dylan Chandler. Courtesy of Crosby Studios.

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Tributes have poured in for architect and critic Michael Sorkin, who has died aged 71 of complications caused by Covid-19.

Based in New York, Sorkin headed architecture firm Michael Sorkin Studio and was president of non-profit research group Terreform.

His death triggered shock and an outpouring of warm tributes from architects, critics and writers around the world.

"He was a supremely gifted, astute and acerbic writer"

"I am heartbroken. This is a great loss," tweeted New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. "He was so many things. He was a supremely gifted, astute and acerbic writer. He wrote with moral force about big ideas and about the granular experience of life at the level of the street."

"Whether or not one agreed with Michael Sorkin didn't matter in the end," added Chicago Tribune critic Blair Kamin. "He was a great activist critic – fearless, unafraid to challenge received wisdom or powerful figures, and, because of his wit and insight, a pleasure to read."

"The architecture world has lost a brilliant mind," said Harriet Harriss, dean of New York's Pratt Institute School of Architecture.

Financial Times architecture correspondent Edwin Heathcote described Sorkin as a "fierce and brilliant critic, perhaps the best".

"No one wrote about architecture like Michael Sorkin"

Graphic designer Michael Beirut said: "No one wrote about architecture like Michael Sorkin. I miss him already".

"Damn," said writer Geoff Manaugh. "Always loved this from him: 'Fish are symmetrical but only until they wiggle. Our effort is to measure the space between the fish and the wiggle. This is the study of a lifetime.'

Sorkin was an architect, a writer and the director of the graduate programme in urban design at City College of New York (CCNY).

He had also taught at a number of institutions including London's Architectural Association and American schools Cooper Union, Harvard University and Columbia University.

Sorkin served as architecture critic New York paper The Village Voice

He was architecture critic for New York news and culture paper The Village Voice for 10 years and contributed to Architectural Record, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

"That's so sad," said Design Museum curator Justin McGuirk. "His writing, especially the Village Voice columns, was a big early influence. Remember fondly him drinking me under the table in Greenwich Village. RIP Michael."

At the time of his death, he was also serving as the principal of the Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, which he founded in 2005, and editor-in-chief of its magazine UR (Urban Research).

He also wrote and edited a total of 20 books, with the most recent including All Over The Map: Writing on Buildings and Cities and Twenty Minutes in Manhattan.

Sorkin was born in Washington DC in 1948. He gained a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1970 and completed a master's in architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology four years later. He died on Thursday 26 March 2020.

His death follows that of Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti, designer of Palermo's ZEN neighbourhood and the renovation of Barcelona's Olympic stadium, who died earlier this month aged of 92 of coronavirus.

Photo of Sorkin was posted to Twitter by Harriet Harriss.

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Flat-pack startup Jupe has unveiled the "world's first standalone intensive care unit" and several other pop-up care facilities to help hospitals under pressure due to coronavirus.

Jupe, which was founded by entrepreneur ​Jeff Wilson​ and investment banker Cameron Blizzard to provide housing to displaced people, announced yesterday it was pivoting services in response to the pandemic.

Wilson and Blizzard teamed up with health advocate and physician ​Esther Choo and humanitarian designer ​Cameron Sinclair​ to develop the new arm called Jupe Health. It has created three care facilities that can be flat-packed and rapidly deployed to hospitals in the US.

"Hospitals can't tackle it all rapidly enough, even once the federal government's aid package kicks in," said Choo.

"The health system has many overlapping needs right now, and cannot function well without all the pieces in place," she continued. "We're working to plug one of the more complex gaps."

The facilities include Jupe Plus, a "light" intensive care unit (ICU); Jupe Care, an off-grid recovery unit for patients who aren't critical; and the Jupe Rest area that provides beds for medical professionals.

Jupe said it could deploy 24 of the flat-packed units on a heavy-duty pick-up truck with a 40-foot (12-metre) flatbed, or 500,000 on a single cargo ship, to both rural and urban areas in America.

"Having highly deployable recovery units gives us the best chance of fighting Covid-19 and to support our frontline medical professionals," Sinclair said.

Jupe has already started prototyping its Care and Rest Units. More details about Jupe Plus will be released next month, but the company says it will mark the "world's first standalone intensive care unit".

Jupe Rest units are designed to provide a place for medical professionals to sleep between shifts. It means that they don't need to travel back home, preventing contact with their families and avoiding spread of the Covid-19.

Each comes with a bed and is connected to the Internet of Things, which refers to electronic objects that share data to provide a "network-ready treatment space" allowing air, climate and noise control.

Alongside a bed, toilet, sink, and shower, Jupe Care units include ventilator hook-ups and separate chambers for medical professionals to don and doff protective equipment.

The units are enclosed by a faceted exterior that is available in soft-top or hard covers, and are either solar or battery-powered and fitted with water-disposal.

Wilson​ said the project has brought together professionals from a wide variety of fields, including film, design and 3D-printing, and is unprecedented.

"Never before has a team of rocket-engineers, car-designers, architects, humanitarians, medical doctors, IOT-experts, and boutique hoteliers come together around a mission like this," he said.

"Never before has the housing industry leveraged auto, space and software technology," Wilson added. "Never before has the timing been more utterly critical than today."

A number of architects, designers and companies have responded to coronavirus. Earlier this week, Italian architects Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota unveiled a proposal to create an intensive-care pod within a shipping container that could be added to hospitals.

Major brands have also responded to the medical equipment shortages caused by the pandemic, with car manufacturer Vauxhall and Gucci parent company Kering offering money and production lines to make items like masks, ventilators and hand sanitizers.

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The American Institute of Architects has launched a task force to consult on how to adapt buildings into healthcare facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.

Announced yesterday, the initiative by American Institute of Architects (AIA) was created in response to Covid-19 in the US, which now leads the world in confirmed cases.

The task force is intended to provide information on how to convert existing buildings into temporary healthcare facilities to treat those suffering from the virus.

"On a daily basis, I am hearing from our architects who feel a deep sense of moral duty to support our healthcare providers on the frontlines of this pandemic," said AIA president Jane Frederick.

"As our communities assess buildings to address growing surge capacity, we hope this task force will be a resource to ensure buildings are appropriately and safely adapted for our doctors and nurses."

"This is a race against time for healthcare facilities"

Kirsten Waltz, the director of facilities, planning and design at Massachusetts healthcare nonprofit Baystate Health, is working with the task force to advise how to modify hospitals and smaller facilities to meet the surging demand of beds, as well as design more medical screening and triage areas.

"This is a race against time for healthcare facilities to meet bed surge capacity needs," Waltz said.

"This task force will help inform best practices for quickly assessing building inventory and identifying locations that are most appropriate to be adapted for this crisis."

A number of hotels and vacant buildings in America have already turned into temporary relief centres such as New York's Javits Center, which was set to hold the now-cancelled International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Environmental health scientist and architect Molly Scanlon, who is chair of AIA's task force, said that many more places are needed to treat the number of people that will be affected.

"During the Covid-19 pandemic public health response there is an unprecedented need for the adaptive reuse of buildings to serve a variety of functions," she said.

"Architects and our allied design and construction professionals are in a unique position to leverage our advanced problem-solving skills to bring forth ideas for community implementation."

The AIA is also developing a Covid-19 report called the Rapid Response Safety Space Assessment for members to use to consider the suitability of buildings and spaces sites for relevant care.

Task force follows other proposals to support hospitals

A group of architects with experience in healthcare facility design and disaster assistance are creating the report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks.

A number of architects and designers have already created schemes to ease the pressure on hospitals during the pandemic.

Italian architects Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota have proposed an intensive-care pod within shipping containers. In a similar scheme, Jupe has unveiled the "world's first standalone Intensive Care Unit" and other pop-up care facilities to help hospitals.

As the health pandemic also affects the economy, the AIA has also urged the US government to offer financial assistance to small architecture studios.

Photograph is by Adhy Savala on Unsplash.

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Architects across America including BIG, KPF and Handel Architects have teamed up as part of an open-source project to manufacture face shields to protect hospital workers treating coronavirus patients.

Firms across the country are using their own 3D printers and laser cutters to make the visors, which are being delivered to hospitals for distribution to front-line medical staff amid shortages of the safety devices.

Many of the architects are basing their visors on open-source files created by Erik Cederberg of Swedish 3D-printing company 3DVerkstan. The simple design consists of a laser-cut clear plastic shield that covers the face and a printed visor band that fits across the user's forehead.

A standard three-hole punch is used to make holes in the plastic shield so it can clip onto the visor.

"It is brilliant in its simplicity," said architect Eric Höweler, principal at Boston studio Höweler + Yoon, one of the firms helping to make visors.

"A simple 3D-printed PLA [polylactic acid] part plus a clear sheet with three punched holes and we get a pretty effective face shield," he said.

Face shields help protect the wearer's face from body fluids and can be worn in conjunction with masks.

Other architects printing the shields include Handel Architects, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), Grimshaw, Terreform One, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), Weiss Manfredi and Brooks + Scarpa.

The effort is being coordinated by the Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) faculty at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York State.

"Yesterday morning we delivered hundreds of printed visors and laser-cut shields directly to Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City," said Jenny Sabin, professor of architecture at Cornell and head of Ithaca architect Jenny Sabin Studio.

"They will go through a sanitising process and then will be distributed to doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals on the front lines."

Sabin added: "It's just amazing how the network has grown in less than four days!"

The visors, which are based on the 3DVerkstan design, have been tested and verified by Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell's medical school in New York City. Sabin has uploaded manufacturing instructions and advice for others who want to participate.

"Weill Cornell Medicine estimated a need for 20,000-50,000 protective face shields per day in NYC," Sabin added. "We have since learned that their need for the visor's printed component is much lower at around 3,000 parts [per day]."

The transparent plastic sheet that forms the shield, and which needs to be replaced or sanitised after each shift, is in greater need, Sabin said.

The mobilisation followed a request for help from colleagues at Weill Cornell Medicine.

"Last week Weill Cornell Medicine in NYC reached out to see if Cornell faculty could help with the need for PPEs [personal protective equipment]," said Meejin Yoon, dean of Cornell's Architecture, Art and Planning school and partner at Höweler + Yoon.

"As you know, there is a national shortage and a supply chain issue."

Since the school's workshops have been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the faculty decided to call on fellow architects to help out.

"We decided this was an essential need and critical to support this effort," said Yoon. "Jenny started 3D printing immediately from her lab, and we used all our rapid prototyping machines towards this effort in college as well."

Architecture firms across America have joined the effort, with BIG in New York City dedicating its model shop to producing the visors.

"In response to the acute and escalating need for personal protection equipment here in New York City and the plea of governor Andrew Cuomo and being personally reached out to by doctors and nurses from both Cornell and Mount Sinai Hospitals here in New York we had the possibility to mobilise our 3D printing and modelmaking capabilities to make this scarce life-saving equipment," said BIG partner Kai-Uwe Bergmann.

BIG expects to be able to produce 5,000 visors per week after adapting Erik Cederberg's open-source file to allow up to 50 visor components to be printed simultaneously instead of one at a time.

"As of next week we will also be adding our London and Copenhagen offices towards this production as we have established ties to medical institutions," added Bergmann.

The global architecture and design community has mobilised in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Spanish studio Nagami Design has adapted its furniture production facilities to make face shields while leading fashion brands are producing surgical masks and architects Carlo Ratti Associati has developed a design for intensive care units made from converted shipping containers.

Read all Dezeen's coverage about the coronavirus pandemic.

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American firm Hendricks Churchill has rebuilt a house in Connecticut to merge the aesthetic of a traditional farmhouse and contemporary details.

The project Levine was designed for the owner of an art-moving business, who wanted a traditional home with modern features for his family.

"The goal was to design a somewhat traditional house with a few key contemporary elements," Hendricks Churchill's creative director Rafe Churchill told Dezeen.

"Generally, the idea was to deliver a modern farmhouse."

The original structure was a low-lying bungalow positioned on the property to provide views of the distant Lake Wononscopomuc.

The studio partially demolished the existing structure, leaving only the ground floor framing and foundation to create the open-plan 3,900-square-foot (362-square-metre) house.

Large black window frames on the exterior and large rooms that open to a central hallway are among the modern touches the architects added as part of the redesign.

"The open floor plan was key to the success of the project," Churchill added. "With large cased openings linking rooms, a wide centre hall, and large black framed windows, the project feels distinctly contemporary."

A covered porch lined by a series of columns and steps form the main entrance. White panels constructed underneath the porch conceal the original foundation, which was built into the sloping site.

Windows detailed with black frames are arranged in rows on all faces of the white house and saturate the interiors with natural light. Beige and white-painted walls, high ceilings and large openings also brighten the interiors.

A large living room situated at the front of the house has windows across three sides. At one end of the large living space, there is a brick fireplace outlined with white trim.

In the kitchen, the doorways and window frames are painted green to match a series of built-in cabinets. White tiles cover the walls behind the massive farm sink and stainless steel range.

A simple wood table provides space both food preparation and sharing meals instead of a kitchen island.

The residence also includes a small study that is painted pale blue. It is decorated with a beige couch, orange armchair and a wall of built-in shelving and cabinets that create storage for books.

Patterned and textured area rugs lay over the hardwood floors that run throughout the space. Other furnishings include antique wood cupboards and neutral couches accented by colourful pillows.

Churchill founded the architecture and interior design firm Hendricks Churchill with Heide Hendricks. It has offices in New York City and Sharon, Connecticut.

Other recently completed houses in Connecticut include a property overlooking Lake Wononscopomuc. Allee Architecture designed the residences as two distinct volumes, topped with a roof garden.

Photography is by Tim Lenz.

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California firm Walker Warner Architects has transformed a warehouse into a visitor centre for a winery with redwood, cypress and rammed earth.

Called House of Flowers, the project serves as a visitor centre and tasting room for Flowers Vineyard & Winery, well known for its chardonnay and pinot noir wines.

Started in the 1980s, the company has vineyards along Sonoma County's rugged coast in California. The new visitor facility is located in the town of Healdsburg, which is a popular destination for wine lovers and tourists, and more accessible than its previous location.

The centre sits on a 15-acre (six-hectare) estate that formerly belonged to VML Winery. When Flowers acquired the site, it set out to renovate the property's outdated structures and turned to San Francisco's Walker Warner Architects for help.

The challenge was how to preserve the site's legacy while updating it. Rather than build anew, Walker Warner Architects chose to convert a warehouse into the visitor centre – a decision that aligned with its client's commitment to sustainability.

While designing the project, the team focused on creating a building that embraced the natural setting. The warehouse was overhauled and a two-storey volume was added.

"Our approach was deceptively simple," said firm principal Brooks Walker. "Let nature dominate and use architecture to frame the experience."

Tucked into a tree grove, the centre is roughly rectangular in plan and is topped with a pitched, standing-seam metal roof. Redwood wall cladding is stained black to help the building "recede into the site and allow the landscape to become the focus," the studio said.

"The architectural expression is understated," said firm principal Mike McCabe. "The region's strong, simple vernacular forms served as guide and reference point to help root the architecture to its setting."

The team incorporated passive strategies to reduce energy consumption, such as the inclusion of skylights and large windows. The surrounding trees help shade the building.

The interior features a variety of rooms where guests can sip wine and learn about vinification. Rooms are fitted with low-back sofas, wicker chairs and wooden tables.

Off-white walls are paired with cypress wall panelling, which is meant to provide a "yin-yang" contrast to the building's dark exterior. Concrete and oak are used for flooring.

Visitors can also relax outdoors and take in the scenery. An outdoor kitchen features a wood-fired oven used to prepare pizza and other fares for wine pairings.

The project also entailed modifications to the landscape, which were overseen by Nelson Byrd Woltz and Alexis Woods Landscape Design. Garden plots are filled with grasses, flowering plants and leafy trees.

Low walls made of rammed earth and board-formed concrete – along with a variety of seating areas – are woven into the outdoor space. New pathways lead from a parking lot to the visitor centre.

"Together, landscape and architecture combine to provide a quiet refuge, a place to celebrate community and friends through the experience of wine," the team added.

Established in 1989, Walker Warner Architects has completed an array of projects including Makani' Eka house in Hawaii and wine-tasting pavilions overlooking Napa Valey.

Photography is by Douglas Friedman.

Project credits:

Architect: Walker Warner Architects
Team: Mike McCabe (principal), Brooks Walker (principal),
Sharon Okada (senior project manager), Matthew Marsten, Hana Bittner, Darcy Arioli
Interior designer: Walker Warner Architects and Maca Huneeus Design
Landscape architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Consulting local landscape architect: Alexis Woods Landscape Design
Lighting design: Anna Kondolf Lighting Design
Structural engineering: Daedalus Structural Engineering
Contractor: Cello & Madru Construction Company

Product suppliers:

Doors and windows: Amari, Northstar Woodworks
Wall and ceiling panelling: Arc Wood & Timbers
Reclaimed wood: Aborica
Reclaimed wood sculptures: Arborica, Evan Shively
Oak flooring: Monarch Plank
Stair railing: Complete Fabrications
Lighting: Areti, Bocci, Tegan Lighting
Pizza oven: Mugnaini
Gas fireplace: Element 4
Concrete island and vanity: Sonoma Cast Stone
Tiles: Ann Sacks, Island Stone
Fixtures: Kallista

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Weathered steel and juniper siding clad the cross-laminated timber community centre that Lever Architecture has added to the Oregon outpost of The Nature Conservancy.

The local firm added a one-storey volume made of cross-laminated timber (CLT) to a three-story building that was completed in the 1970s on a corner plot in Portland's Buckman neighbourhood.

The project forms the Oregon offices of The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit organisation founded in 1951 to conserve lands and waterways around the world. It has offices in almost every US state and is headquartered in Virginia.

The cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, which comprise layers of lumber glued together, are made from Douglas fir from the region. The panels were also manufactured in Oregon. Lever Architecture claims the extension is of the first to be made with CLT produced in the US.

"The addition is one of the first in the US built with domestically-fabricated CLT panels that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)," the studio said.

In addition to the panels that use local materials, other aspects also make the most of Oregon's natural materials. Juniper siding on the exterior was sourced from The Nature Conservancy's conservation site in Eastern Oregon, Juniper Hill preserve.

Cedar boards sourced from trees in the coastal Willapa Bay reserve are used on the green roof of the extension. Lever Architecture also chose native plants for the rooftop including bushes and wildflowers from the state's Rowena Plateau.

"To create an expression of The Nature Conservancy's work in Oregon and to connect staff and visitors to nature, the design integrates materials and plantings specific to their priority projects around the state," the studio said.

Cedar and hemlock trees are planted at another part of the property. At the entrance are plants from Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which encompasses 114,000 acres (46,134 hectares) of mountains.

Weathering steel wraps around the original building and the addition is to visually tie the project together.

Inside, all of the rooms were renovated to become light-filled spaces. The community centre offers a variety of spaces for working, holding meetings and hosting events. The ground floor contains a conference room, while the two floors above have smaller work areas. A staff cafe and lounge round out the 15,000-square-foot (1,393-square-metre) project.

Lever Architecture said that sustainability formed a key part of the project, which has achieved a LEED Gold certification – the highest score for a building's energy efficiency

In addition to choosing to keep the original office building, CLT was used because it has a lower embodied carbon footprint than concrete or steel, as shown in a recent report by the University of Washington.

Other US projects built with CLT are a Connecticut high school by Gray Organschi, a building at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an Atlanta house by Jennifer Bonner.

Efforts to improve the energy efficiency of The Nature Conservancy's Oregon office also include introducing solar panels on the roof and a subsurface filtration system that manages stormwater on-site.

Photovoltaics produce 25 per cent of the office building's electrical supply, while systems and fixtures were replaced to reduce water consumption by 44 per cent and electric consumption by 54 per cent.

Lever Architecture has also designed a factory building in Portland with weathering steel and built a tasting room for a winery in Oregon's Yamhill County. The firm has also proposed a 12-storey tower for Portland which would be the US's first high-rise wooden structure.

Photography is by Jeremy Bittermann unless otherwise stated.

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Stained glass windows feature alongside contemporary furniture in this multipurpose space in Los Angeles designed by Francesca de la Fuente and Working Holiday Studio.

The Ruby Street venue occupies an Arts and Crafts-style building that was constructed in the late 19th century in LA's Highland Park neighbourhood. The building has a storied past, having served as a civil rights meeting place and the home of a progressive church.

The property was purchased by creative couple Lourdes Hernandez and Zach Leigh, who set out to transform the former church into a venue for co-working and events such as dinner parties, performances, photoshoots and weddings.

"Both musicians, Zack and Lourdes dreamt of owning a space where their fellow local creatives could come together to celebrate love, art and LA," the team said.

The couple turned to interior designer Francesca de la Fuente and Working Holiday Studio – both based in LA – to freshen up the space. They also collaborated with graphic designer Daniel Barreto.

Roughly rectangular in plan, the building is one storey plus a basement and totals 4,000 square feet (372 square metres). The interior consists of two large, open rooms – referred to as the Reception Hall and Worship Hall – and two small spaces dubbed The Gallery and The Suite.

The venue also offers 4,000 square feet of outdoor space.

While updating the building for contemporary needs, the team sought to preserve original features such as exterior details and stained glass windows.

"The building's original windows and craftsman facade have been carefully preserved, along with the church's open-plan layout," the team said.

New oak flooring and skylights were added, and the interior colour palette was updated. To furnish the space, the team partnered with a range of brands, including BluDot, Another Human, Menu and Bend Goods. Most of the pieces are available for sale through the Ruby Street website.

"The team has partnered with brands and creators from Los Angeles and Europe whose work combines function with sculptural and artistic design," the team said.

The Reception Hall is fitted with long, custom wooden tables and sage- and rose-coloured chairs from Article. Suspended overhead are pendants by Ferm Living.

Just off the hall is a vestibule with a vintage, refinished sideboard and a large mirror surrounded by lush vegetation. The vertical planting system is from the Missouri company WallyGro.

In the Worship Hall, the team created several seating areas. One holds a curved, vintage sofa with orange upholstery and leather armchairs from Croft House. Hanging on the walls are light fixtures, mirrors and macrame.

Another seating area is adorned with a velvet green sofa from Urban Outfitters, pink chairs from Hightower, and a wood-and-tile coffee table by designer Nima Abili. Affixed to the wall is a lighting fixture from CB2, and stretching underfoot is a grey-and-cream rug with a geometric pattern.

One of the smaller rooms has a tan couch, pouffes and a BluDot light fixture made of rattan and steel wire. On the wall is an abstract mural by the local artist Dakota Solt of Form + Color.

The team also redesigned the outdoor spaces by integrating seating into a wide staircase that steps down to a lawn, where the owners plan to host film screenings and communal meals.

Los Angeles has seen the conversion of historic buildings into contemporary work and event spaces. In the downtown district, an early 1900s warehouse was converted into an outpost for Soho House, and a floor within the 1890s Bradbury Building is the latest location for NeueHouse.

In the city's Playa Vista district, ZGF Architects has transformed an aeroplane hangar into a Google office that features open workspaces, elevated walkways and exposed timber beams.

Photography is by Cándida Wohlgemuth.

Project credits:

Design team: Lourdes Hernandez, Zach Leigh, Francesca de la Fuente and Working Holiday Studio
Select partner brands: Another Human, Argot Studio, Bend Goods, BluDot, Croft House, Entler, Hightower, Menu, Most Modest, Nima Abili, Owl
Visual identity: Daniel Barreto

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A rust-coloured leather nightstand and desk with looping wooden legs are among the furniture pieces in this collection by Brooklyn's Bowen Liu Studio.

Bower Liu Studio has created an imaginary painter's room, decorated with paintings, tapestries and jars of paintbrushes, to form the setting to launch its new series.

Photos of the showcase called A Painter's Room present the collection in a space with white-painted brick walls and wooden flooring.

Among the items on show are the Yan platform bed and Yan nightstand made from walnut. The headboard is formed from several slabs of the dark wood with a large cutout at the top.

The matching wooden frame for the mattress also forms a shelf along the bed's perimeter.

Covered in cognac leather, the Yan nightstand has peg legs and is fronted by a drawer and open bottom shelf.

Also in the collection is the Peizi desk, which has a thin silhouette accented by a pair of tall looping legs. It features a flat surface table on top of a compartment fronted by a small drawer.

To accompany with tables, the studio designed the Feast Chairs with open backs and angled arm rests. The seats are upholstered with black leather.

The collection also includes a long cabinet fronted with a sliding black door accented with brass handles. Called the Gatsby Credenza, it is intended to pay homage to the prohibition era through a "speakeasy" door for hiding liquor products that attaches to its backside.

In addition to walnut, all of the pieces can be made in maple, white oak, cherry or ash wood.

To complete the space, Bowen Liu Studio included three paintings by local artist Aesther Chang, who took cues from work by poet Edgar Allan Poe to create the pieces for the fictional painter.

"Aesther Chang constructs the soul of the 'painter' in the room, presenting three paintings inspired by the poet Edgar Allan Poe that offer various internal and external perspectives from the point of view of the imagined painter," Bowen Liu Studio said.

The paintings are teamed with a boro-embroidered tapestry by Hangzhou fashion designer Lang Jin. The square textile was constructed using the traditional patchwork method and comprises dozens of plaid, floral and velvet fabric remnants sewn together.

Brooklyn design studio Radnor also recently launched a furniture collection that features several wood objects including a bed with a rattan headboard and curving cane-like legs and a round coffee table with visible joists.

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Art-activist group The Illuminator has protested the US government's response to the coronavirus pandemic by projecting calls to action onto a New York skyscraper.

The protest, which took place last Saturday night, aimed to highlight a number of issues faced by New York residents, including a lack of medical equipment, expensive health care and rent payments.

"Free care for Covid", "Healthcare for all", "DC: more aid to NYC" were among the other phrases illuminated in bold white text on a Manhattan skyscraper.

"These are not radical demands," said The Illuminator member Emily Andersen.

"These are requests for basic needs, needs that must be fulfilled if we are to survive not only this current outbreak, but the fallout that is soon to come after."

Measuring around 20-metres wide, the bold white messages lit up the top of a high-rise not far from the Empire State Building. The group said the projector was in a nearby apartment.

The Illuminator said the protest was aimed at officials in the local, state, and federal government, with the aim to draw attention to the crisis in New York. Over 1,000 people have already died in New York City from coronavirus, while New York State has reportedly nearly half of the country's cases.

The "Cancel the rent" projection follows a call to suspend rent payments for people who have lost their jobs due to the economic downturn or are unable to work as they are sick.

Many of the phrases were focused on the federal government in Washington DC, which had signed a $2 trillion (£1.62 trillion) stimulus bill to help stabilise the economy one day before. The package includes cheques for Americans, expanded unemployment benefits and aid for small businesses.

"Send more ventilators" and "DC: more aid to NYC" follow discourse between New York governor Andrew Cuomo and The White House. Cuomo has said that New York will need 30,000 ventilators in the coming weeks to help those suffering from the disease but the amount has been questioned by president Donald Trump.

"The system we have been operating in has exacerbated the severity of this crisis, and we cannot go back to business as usual," said the The Illuminator's Andersen.

"Business as usual is killing us," she continued. "It is killing our friends, it is killing our families, and it is killing our future. We need change. We need federal aid now – help with medical supplies, testing, rent and debt relief."

The "Free care for Covid" and "Healthcare for all" projections called for financial aid for health insurance companies and employees to help with payments to cover the healthcare of the sick.

The protest also included a series of phrases that relate to ways to help mitigate the spread of the virus, such as "Wash your hands" and "Don't touch your face".

As New York's coronavirus crisis intensifies, a number of temporary hospitals have already been created in the city. They include a field hospital comprising 68 beds in white tents opened in Central Park yesterday, a Navy hospital ship docked on Manhattan's West Side and the Javits Convention Center.

Architects across America including New York's BIG have also teamed up as part of an open-source project to manufacture face shields to protect hospital workers treating coronavirus patients.

Read today's architecture and design coronavirus briefing here and keep up to date with the rest of our coronavirus coverage here.

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Florida design studio Yield is using its production facility to create a spray hand sanitiser to help reduce the spread Covid-19.

Yield specialises in furniture and kitchenware but decided to use its manufacturing abilities and expertise in response to shortages caused by coronavirus.

The studio, which is based in Saint Augustine, said it is capable of "producing millions of units" of the antiseptic.

Yield designed the hand sanitiser to help organisations struggling to get large supplies of the antiseptic. A range of sizes is offered, from personal spritzers to bulk containers.

"They've been struggling to find suppliers that can handle their volume needs, and we've been able to do that and make them available at a fair price," Yield's co-founder Andrew Deming told Dezeen.

Yield has created a spray bottle for its hand sanitiser because the studio said traditional sanitisers that use droplets tend to be less efficient. Yield claims the spritz allows for many more applications than gel.

"We specifically formulated our sanitiser as a spray application to deliver the most value," the studio said.  "Spray sanitisers deliver up to 15-20 times more uses than gel with the same efficacy."

The spray can be used on surfaces, machinery and tools, in addition to hands, according to the studio.

The sanitiser is 70 per cent ethyl alcohol and a mix of essential oils like bergamot, organic blue chamomile and cypress oil. Inactive ingredients are water, fractionated coconut oil and glycerin.

It is produced in Utah and meets the US's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Pharmacopeia (USP) guidelines for in-vitro efficacy against coronaviruses, including Covid-19.

Sizes include one-ounce, four-ounce and eight-ounce sprayers. The studio can also produce larger sizes for hospitals and offices, such as one-gallon jugs for refill stations and bulk-sized palletized totes of 275 to 330 grams.

The spray bottles can also be customised with a business logo on the backside near the ingredient information.

Yield is working with health nonprofit United Way and local governments to provide the sanitiser, but said it is open to working with other organisations.

The studio's transition to making sanitiser follows a number of efforts in the architecture and design community to offer help during the coronavirus crisis. Architecture firms across America like BIG, KPF and Handel Architects have teamed up as part of an open-source project to manufacture face shields to protect hospital workers treating sicks patients.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have also developed a plastic face shield to help during the supplies shortage.

Others are turning to care units that can be built in a short time to support hospitals, such as flat-pack shelters by Jupe, SheltAir inflatable pods and shipping containers by Carlo Ratti.

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Architecture firm Roth Sheppard has added a pair of steeply pitched metal gables to this brick Tudor Revival house in Denver.

The local firm designed the renovation and extension of Rabbit House, which is located on Packard Hill in Denver's Potter Highlands Historic District. It was originally built in 1938 by Welsh architect R O Parry.

The house received its name from a neighbourhood resident who used to visit the alfalfa fields that previously occupied the lot to gather hay for her pet rabbits.

Roth Sheppard's project added 1,760 square feet (164 square metres) to the single-storey Tudor Revival-style property so it now totals 4,442 square feet (413 square metres).

It combines traditional Tudor details such as a multi-gabled roofline, large chimney and decorative entryway with modern elements including metal cladding and open floor plan.

"The juxtaposition between old and new showcase the sophisticated integration of modern design concepts," Roth Sheppard said.

On the exterior two steep gables clad in black standing-seam metal are paired with the brick facade.  Existing details including the arched doorway, small rounded window and brick stoop remain on the front of the house.

"The new brick and metal material palette was inspired by traditional noble materials, brick, stone and slate, that were used to construct these historic Tudor Revival residences," the studio added.

The larger of the two gables forms a cantilever on the backside of the home to extend over deck. It is supported by slanted columns that are set in a large black planter box is used to separate the covered area from the outdoor patio space.

A large brick fireplace with two narrow windows attaches to the house's southern elevation. All of the existing windows were also updated to make them more energy-efficient versions.

Roth Sheppard also added a brick circulation tower to house the staircase so that the main living area could be open plan. The new brick structure attaches to the side and features glass panels.

The ground floor comprises an open-plan lounge, kitchen and dining room. The latter two are placed at the rear and flanked by sliding glass doors that open onto a patio.

They form part of a series of floor-to-ceiling windows and glazed doors that bring natural light inside.

Honey-coloured white oak floors run throughout the interiors. The pale hardwood also covers some ceilings to show where the original structure meets the addition.

In the kitchen, wood cabinets are accented with thin black handles. A white hood covering the range, a large island and glass pendant lights also feature in the kitchen.

Other details include pale wood reveals around the casement windows and doorways that create shadow boxes to add depth and dimension to the space.

Roth Sheppard is a Denver architecture firm founded in 1983 by Jeff Sheppard and Herb Roth.

Other houses in Denver, Colorado include a low-lying brick residence fronted with walnut panels and large glass panes and house clad with recycled wooden shipping pallets.

Photography is by James Florio.

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San Francisco studio John Lum Architecture has contrasted the look of this cottage-style house in the city with a steel-and-glass extension at the back.

John Lum Architecture renovated the dwelling on a sloping property in the city's Eureka Valley neighbourhood, which spans 19th Street and Thorp Lane. The project, called 19th Street, features a one-storey, gabled portion at the front and an addition in the rear that scales five levels.

The studio demolished a large portion of the rear of the existing residence and replaced it with a larger, flat-roofed addition. With steel cladding and floor-to-ceiling windows, it offers a stark contrast to the original home, as well as more natural light, larger floorplates and higher ceilings inside.

"We renovated this family house to maximise views while preserving the architectural integrity of the neighbourhood," said John Lum Architecture.

"Charming cottage style in the front. Cool modern multi-level design in the back."

The front facade has been refreshed with a recurved entry, new glass front door and windows. Its previous light blue exterior has been painted white with black trim to match the contemporary extension, while still reflecting the neighbourhood's vernacular.

The property joins a number of San Francisco houses updated with contemporary rear extensions to contrast with the original front facades.

Others include Jensen Architects' Alamo Square Residence, a Victorian home by Fougeron Architecture, 29th Street Residence by Schwartz and Architecture and Edmonds + Lee's Gable House.

"Known for its rows of charming houses, San Francisco is riddled with historic homes designed for a time gone by," John Lum Architecture added.

The 19th Street property features a garage on its lowest level and four storeys above. At the rear, two terraces provide outdoor living space and sliding glass doors on each level allow rooms to open to the outdoors.

The residence measures 4,500 square feet (418 square metres) and has five bedrooms and five bathrooms in total.

The entrance is located on the top floor and accessed from 19th Steet. Upon entering are a living room, dining area, kitchen and second sitting area. Three bedrooms are downstairs, and a bathroom features a bathtub enclosed by glass walls.

Above the garage is a level that also contains a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom.

John Lum Architecture inserted a new glazed staircase that allows for light to pass through the floors for an airy feel and replaces a stairwell that lacked natural light.

The decor is modern and includes a leather sectional, rattan chairs, grey cabinets, light wood floors and white countertops and walls.

It is close to San Francisco's Dolores Heights neighbourhood and Mission Dolores Park. Elda restaurant, Dolores Heights Residence by John Maniscalco and Ryan Leidner's Harrison Street House are among the projects nearby.

Photography is by Paul Dyer.

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Rhode Island School of Design alumni have designed face shields to meet the growing demand for medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.

Five graduates of the art and design school in Providence have turned their studios away from the production of clothes and furniture and into fabrication sites for personal protective equipment (PPE).

The alumni includes Providence textile artist Jungil Hong and Matt Muller, who runs design collective Pneuhaus. They have teamed up to create a face shield that comprises a curved vinyl cover and simple velcro strap to attach the device around the user's head.

The team said it aimed to create a simple design that can be reused and sanitised onsite. The velcro strap detaches from the shield so it can be disinfected in a bleach solution, while the vinyl cover is designed to lay down flat so it can be wiped clean.

"We can sustain our business and provide a product that's a quarter the price of what's out there because our design is so much simpler," Muller said. "We have the capacity to make between 1,500 and 3,000 shields per day once we get going."

In addition to making PPE, Hong and Muller are also working to distribute it to essential workers in the region.

"Complex loopholes make it hard for hospitals to do this critical purchasing," the team added. "So we're distributing shields and masks directly to health care providers, postal workers, housing and social services advocates and other essential workers across many fields in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and Maine."

Co-principals of Brooklyn design consultancy Studio Den Den, George Coffin and Jillian Wiedenmayer, meanwhile are prototyping reusable 3D-printed face shields.

Coffin and Wiedenmayer are using the open-source files created by Swedish company 3DVerksta, which comprises a laser-cut shield and 3D-printed visor strap. The template is also being used by America architects like BIG, KPF and Handel Architects as part of an open-source project to create PPE.

As part of their process, Coffin and Wiedenmayer are sending completed designs to local health care facilities to test and get feedback on.

"We vetted these products for function, comfort and ease of production," the team said. "So far the prototypes are quite durable, offer flexible comfort, don't fog up much and fit well over goggles and masks."

The duo are also raising money to fund the production of reusable 3D-printed face shields they are giving to health care workers in New York City, which has reported over 100,0000 cases of Covid-19.

"We quickly saw how dire the situation was and it was glaringly obvious that we had the skills and the passion to meet the need," Wiedenmayer said.

Naomi Mishkin, who is now a New York fashion designer, is also working with local hospitals and her manufacturers on hospital-grade cloth masks. She has launched a series of Instagram workshops to teach viewers how to sew their own.

"It's really important for people to connect and add what they can to the conversation, rather than reinvent every wheel," Mishkin said.

The RISD alumni join a number of architects and designers also fabricating PPE and medical supplies to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have begun mass-producing disposable shields for medical workers, while 3D-printer manufacturer Creality has created a buckle that makes wearing masks more comfortable.

Photography is courtesy of Rhode Island School of Design.

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