Over the last several months, the COVID-19 pandemic has globally affected millions of humans and has changed every aspect of our daily life. Hospitals play a major role to combat this pandemic disease however; they are struggling as they are confronted with sudden influx of patients and are jammed to capacity with a lack of available beds and treatment spaces. In managing this health crisis, a rapid resolution concerning our perception and future hospital designs needs to change to save as many lives as possible.
According to a pilot study with experts in architecture, four problems during the design of pandemic hospitals namely; time, space, hygiene and patients' needs and psychology are to be faced. Hence, the designers need to create a new vocabulary or typology for hospitals. A paradigmatic shift in the design concept of hospitals towards what is called emergency or temporary modular hospitals will be herein discussed as a new approach to deal with this pandemic.
In conclusion, the paper aims to understand the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital design and to create a prospected framework for architects and urban designers to find architectural solutions for this crisis.