The design world is helping facing the Coronavirus outbreak, an emergency that nowadays is changing our habits and the way we live. Here a selection of 10 products that redefine actions, change spaces to create new ones, revisit the way we relate to other humans: they are separators, antibacterial products, tools to not directly touch surfaces and to help us maintain social distance.
Creator Transfer Chamber guarantees safe food through an engineering system that makes hamburgers without human contact and delivers the order directly to the customer thanks to a pressurized chamber. The device does not let outside air in and is also open source, available to everyone.
Handy, Matteo Zallio’s multitool, allows people to interface with objects without touching them with hands and is also designed to be shared with the community: a product that can be produced with 3D printing, laser cutting or even at home in a do-it-yourself way.
There are also dividers for public spaces, like the screen designed by Michele De Lucchi and Sezgin Aksu, or the customizable perspex panels by Matteo Cibic Studio, conceived for a return to sociality. Here Comes The Sun is the picnic blanket by designer Paul Cocksedge that assures the distance of 2 meters; Well-distance-being encourages to keep it with a wearable rattan structure.
We add to the list the project developed by digital agency AKQA inside of the world's bestelling video game Minecraft, that for the health emergency becomes a lockdown simulator – Blockdown Simulator – to explain to children the importance of quarantine and social distance. The famous video game does it by recreating a zombie epidemic in a village where the user has to control its spread.
And more: Fitbit, a brand dedicated to health and fitness solutions, which was recently acquired by Google, conveived a play to convert its wearable devices into Coronavirus trackers, monitoring symptoms and tracking contacts.