Many businesses in the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, media and entertainment industries rely on Autodesk’s array of software and services to help deliver innovative solutions. Along with recognizing AEC excellence and stepping up to the plate in tough times, the company strives to be a leader making positive changes around the globe.
“With rapid population growth and accelerated urbanization, it’s estimated that worldwide energy demand will double by 2050, requiring more productive use of energy and materials,” said Rick Rundell, Autodesk Technology Centers senior director. “These demands are critical for our core industries, who view efficient use of energy and materials as key to sustainable success. For Autodesk, we’re committed to sustainability and creating technology that meets our industry customer needs. With every solution and effort, we hope to lead by example with our own operations by advancing sustainability business practices and supporting every employee to make a positive impact.”
One frequent challenge countries throughout the world face revolves around access to health care. From lack of transportation to minimal or less-than-adequate facilities, many developing countries struggle with finding resources or sustainable solutions. In many cases, the design factor comes into play. Whether it is designing a suitable structure or creating solutions to ensure that care can be delivered, Autodesk has established various programs and opportunities for nonprofits and other groups to harness technology to make a difference.
Along with educational opportunities, the Autodesk Foundation and Autodesk Technology Centers Program, which provides free software to nonprofits, startups and entrepreneurs focused on environmental or social good, its four Autodesk Technology Centers also make a big impact. Located in San Francisco, Boston, Toronto and Birmingham, UK, the Autodesk Technology Centers host more than 150 teams, including architecture, engineering, construction, design, manufacturing and emerging technologies, that work on projects for their respective industries and humanitarian efforts.
Among the various projects Autodesk has been able to assist with in one way or another, three recent ones were aimed at solving a health-care challenge in developing countries. While the concept, design and completion elements created their own challenges, the projects also had to incorporate sustainable solutions with local resources and skilled residents.
The Okoa Project
In rural communities, even if there is some medical assistance available, the transportation needed to reach the locations is often lacking. The Okoa Project, a collaboration of engineers and community leaders, made it a mission to address that challenge for communities in Tanzania.
“In 2016, a rural Tanzanian community was searching for a way to reduce preventable maternal deaths and provide a safer, faster way for pregnant women to get to a health care facility,” said Emily Young, the Okoa Project executive director. “Previously, a pregnant mother would have to walk for hours or take an expensive and painful motorcycle ride that required them to make the journey solo. In fact, 830 women die every day due to preventable pregnancy complications, and that is because 1 in 7 people do not have access to adequate medical care.”
Faced with hard-to-traverse roadways and unreliable transportation, the team had to conduct research and design that worked with existing infrastructures while also relying on local resources for materials and development. The team, which received free software from the Autodesk Technology Centers Program, and numerous stakeholders developed an ambulatory motorcycle trailer. Each trailer had to be designed to accommodate the patient while also being able to safely navigate rough terrain and be a sustainable option in terms of maintenance.
“We worked with midwives, chiefs, healthcare workers, community leaders and many others to ensure that our ambulance designs captured the needs of our communities,” Young said. “Autodesk helped us achieve those goals in more ways than one. Our U.S.-based team works out of the Autodesk Technology Center in Boston, which allows us to test out different manufacturing techniques and designs. We have also seen support via the Autodesk Foundation, providing us access to incredible pro-bono services, connections on the continent and a stronger means to get our message out into the world. Because our team is international, Autodesk Fusion 360, the cloud-based CAD program, allows us to work in real-time and across time zones to make our vision a reality.”
Designed to be rugged and durable, the Okoa Ambulance features a strenuously tested suspension system that ensures patient comfort. It has a removable seat and stretcher for easier loading and can accommodate a second passenger. It was also designed to house vital supplies, including a first aid kit, a birth kit and spare contingencies for other urgent medical situations.
Knowing that versatility and sustainability were key elements of the project’s success, the ambulance was designed for use on standard hitch devices. It has a removable attachment that can be used on any motorcycle. Since it was made from locally sourced materials, maintenance can be done with ease. The ambulance also has a modular design that allows it to be used as a mobile health clinic or for medical supply transportation. They have also been integrated with a new technology—integrated GPS sensors—to track the ambulances.
While the ambulance was the focus of the project, the team’s efforts resulted in additional benefits. The processes used during its development provided key ingredients for COVID-19 efforts. Deployable handwashing stations were developed for use in Ghana to reduce the spread of the virus. Again relying on local fabricators, more than 600 stations were locally fabricated with supplied materials and made available for 62 communities.
Health Care Clinics by the Center for Design Research at Virginia Tech and Howick Construction Residents
While countries like China are able to complete impressive construction endeavors, such as the rapid construction of two new massive hospitals filled with the latest technologies to battle COVID-19 within a month, developing countries often lack the basic resources or expertise to even establish a community clinic.
In collaboration with Howick Construction—an Autodesk Technology Center resident—and StrucSoft Solutions, Virginia Tech’s Center for Design Research (CDR) dove into finding a solution to meet the need for more than 1,000 medical clinics designed for infection control in rural Uganda and Zambia while also producing less waste and building the facilities in half the time.
For this project, there were extra considerations to create a design and construction plan for a facility with a central waiting and triage area surrounded by four isolated wings for infection control.
“We knew the distributed community clinics had to be flexible as the clinics had to support both infected patients, as well as patients who might be stopping by for a checkup or vaccine,” said Nathan King, Autodesk Technology Centers senior industry engagement manager AEC. “We needed to ensure that these groups could be isolated as needed. In addition, all circulation and waiting areas were moved to the exterior of the building to eliminate disease transmission in hallways and waiting areas, which can be a breeding ground for infection.”
After building the initial structure in Entebbe, Uganda, using local materials, the team went to work on providing a proof of concept. Using the combined technologies, the collaborative team, along with members from a specialty contracting group, were able to produce a full-scale clinic in a few hours from raw materials to a fully assembled structure.
“Autodesk tools like Autodesk CFD were used to ensure that all spaces had proper environmental performance during the design of the clinic,” King said. “For example, adequate natural ventilation is a key infection control strategy, and Autodesk’s design tools helped inform the ventilation strategy. Tools like StrucSoft, which were embedded in the Autodesk Revit workflow, were used to connect the design model to the automated fabrication tooling in order to shorten production time.”
Howick’s automated tools allowed the team to increase the speed of construction by creating individualized parts and embedding assembly data within each element. Typically, raw parts like studs or blocks would be delivered to a construction site and cut down or modified to fit the building. With Howick’s tooling, the parts delivered to the site were already cut to size and ready for installation, which led to a reduction in production time.
The success of the effort resulted in a collaboration with Make It Rain, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people get access to medical care in Zambia, Uganda and Liberia. The design the team created has been used to build additional clinics for the nonprofit, as well as mini hospitals for the Ministry of Health in Zambia.
Build Health International
Build Health International (BHI), an organization dedicated to building high-quality health infrastructures and enabling access to health care in impoverished regions, recently turned to The Living, an innovative Autodesk Studio, to better incorporate the latest technologies in facility design efforts. The Living team tests and explores new applications of technology in AI and computation, design and fabrication, human-computer interaction and visualization, the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics.
As COVID-19 took hold of the world, BHI set out to develop an open-source manual with construction guidelines and designs for low-skilled laborers. With support from the foundation’s pro bono consulting, the collaborative resulted in a design-for assembly process that considers limited resources, as well as other localized concerns.
“Fast-tracked design and construction were the only ways we could create effective COVID-19 treatment centers,” said Thomas Darr, BHI project architect and site supervisor. “We set the building dimensions for the wards early based on the requisite number of beds, infection prevention and control guidelines, and structural parameters for simple construction. This enabled our construction teams to initiate sitework quickly, including grading and pouring the concrete pads, while the design team revised interior building layouts. Fast-tracking construction in this way enabled our team to design and build a 50-bed COVID-19 treatment center in less than five weeks.”
These available layouts, enabled faster construction of the clinics while also using local resources. One success story was Haiti, which had fewer than 125 intensive care beds for the entire country of 11 million. In less than four months, two COVID-19 centers were built in the country, which added 150 beds dedicated to the coronavirus.
“While BHI is not in the manufacturing industry, we apply principles of design-for-assembly to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of our healthcare projects, particularly for electrical and HVAC systems design and installation,” said Swapnil Patil, BHI energy and electrical engineer. “Pre-fabricating and wiring critical components in the U.S.—including breaker panels, switchgear, temperature sensors, humidity sensors and alarm systems—allows us to test everything before the materials arrive in-country, where it is much more challenging to source parts and address any issues.”
To learn more about other projects reshaping and benefiting the world, visit the Autodesk Technology Centers project site.