Kevin Smith and Julien Soosaipillai discuss collaborative process of creating PPE in fight against Covid-19

Kent School of Architecture and Planning (KSAP), along with colleagues from School of Computing and the School of Engineering and Digital Arts (EDA), have collaborated to design and supply 300 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) for East Kent’s largest hospice charity, Pilgrims Hospice.

KSAP’s Workshop Manager, Kevin Smith, along with 3D CAD Technician, Julien Soosaipillai worked on the project from inception. They documented the pitfalls and progress of the project to date, “We experimented with several designs which were sent to NHS facilities; they preferred the PRUSA 3D V3 printed frame design which is designed to hold a clear plastic screen, bent around the head secured on a radial arrangement of forward-facing location studs. These are sized to just fit through a standard paper hole-punch hole, the idea being that anyone with a hole-punch could make the clear plastic shield front screen.

The original design called for 0.5mm PETG but this is in very short supply due to the unprecedented global demand. We experimented with the 1mm PETG we use for laser cutting but found it to be too stiff; i.e. it kept popping off the frame. PETG is preferred as it is fairly tough and reasonably resistant to solvents (often used for machine guards etc.).

We wanted the shields to be as sterile as possible. The 3D parts can withstand being soaked in Isopropanol to achieve this, so the screens needed to be similarly treatable. We also needed something that was available in paper sizes in case a hole-punch was to be used and preferably available in easily accessible large numbers. We had a stock of 0.24mm PVC A4 Binder covers and experimented with these. Although unable to withstand any significant heat they proved to be completely safe with Isopropanol so we cut a few samples and sent them to a local GP practice and the Pilgrims Hospice for trials. The feedback was good but said they would prefer a more wrapped around design.


3D CAD Technician, Julien Soosaipillai, redesigned the frame using Fusion 360, pulling the side arms in whilst retaining the hole-spacing. The modified sets were duly dispatched and approved. The University of Kent’s Design and Print Centre made 2000 PVC sheets available and the Schools of Engineering and Digital Arts and Computing supplemented our dwindling supplies of filament with everything that they had.

We have now set up a 3D printing Hub in the Digital Crit space using all the KSAP printers together with those from EDA, The School of Computing and School of Physical Sciences. Currently we are running eight Ultimakers, along with four Prusa printers, all printing a mixture of PLA and PETG.  Jigs were duly designed to drill and trim 100 screens at a time and a rotary winder is used to wind on elastic at a predetermined length, speeding up the cutting.”


The visors are supplied flat packed, each pack consists of 10 frames, 10 screens, and 10 lengths of elastic with some printed instructions. Kevin Smith, Workshop Manager, estimates that the team can make and pack 280 – 300 visors per day. Kent Innovation and Enterprise has been co-ordinating enquiries from the start and are currently arranging funding to order more materials to maximise production.

Dr Peter Buš delivers public lecture and workshop at National United University in Taiwan

Dr Peter Buš, member of DARC Research Centre, was invited by Assistant Professor Shi-Yen Wu from the Department of Architecture at the National United University (NUU) in Taiwan to give a public lecture and a computational design workshop based on his previous collaborative activities with the NUU.

Dr Peter Buš’ lecture, ‘Transforming architecture in the age of digitisation of construction: participation, automation and evolving responsive concepts for the 21st Century’, conceptually outlined the idea of crowd-driven assemblies for flexible and adaptive constructions utilising automatic technologies in the context of twenty-first century cities.

The workshop, ‘Emergent proto-architectural formations: towards bio-integrated responsive architectural design, computational design workshop’ was attended by 60 students from National United University in Miao-Li and 13 students from the Shadong Jianzhu University in China. The workshop explored potentials and advantages of advanced computational design methods to rapidly generate spatial digital artefacts, ‘proto-architectures’, based on systematic and process-driven modelling techniques integrating the paradigm of emergence into computational models.

University Prize for Stage 2 Tutors and Technical Support

Tutors on the Stage Two module Collective Dwelling have won this year’s University Teaching Prize for the Faculty of Humanities. The brief for the project, which studied historic buildings in Sandwich and the design of complementary new housing, was devised by Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Benjamin Wood and Patrick O’Keeffe and delivered by a committed team of tutors which also included Dr Manolo Guerci, Felicity Atepke, Jasmine Davey, James McAdam, Tanya Kalinina and David Moore.

The judges, chaired by the Dean of Humanities Professor Simon Kirchin, praised the imaginative and coherent brief and the tutors’ success in stimulating student curiosity and enthusiasm. Stephen Proctor, of Proctor and Matthews, wrote that this was ‘a very ambitious undertaking for students at second year level: not only have the students been expected to engage with in-depth contextual analysis, but also grapple with the complexities of balancing the ergonomic requirements of contemporary domestic space with the technical specifics of servicing requirements and building fabric performance.  All combined with the difficult challenge of accommodating all this within a sensitive historic environment. Through a combined enthusiasm and in-depth subject knowledge, Ben and Patrick have successfully infused their students with a thirst for knowledge which goes beyond that expected so early in an architectural education.  I have been specifically impressed by the level of knowledge the students have attained in vernacular forms and construction detailing.’

In addition, Workshop Manager, Kevin Smith, and 3D CAD Technician, Julien Soosaipillai have won this year’s University Technical Support Award, in recognition of their significant contribution to the success of Kent School of Architecture and planning by providing essential support for both staff and students, with outstanding contribution to CASE (Centre for Architecture and the Sustainable Environment) research project, Urban Albedo.

The three lead tutors will join Kevin Smith and Julien Soosaipillai at the University’s Award Ceremony on 10th July.

Realising Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House

Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House is regarded as one of the most visionary projects in the history of 20th Century architecture. It was a project that spanned almost forty years, developed through sketches, drawings, plans and models between mid-1920’s to the 1960’s but it was never built. Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, considered it important to translate Kiesler’s architecture into reality.

Kent School of Architecture and Planning’s 3D CAD Technician, Julien Soosaipillai, built a digital model of the exterior shell from texts, drawings and photographs of Kiesler’s model for his unfinished Endless House project. This is the first step in DARC‘s current project to realise Frederick Kiesler’s ‘Endless House’.