When rising cases of COVID-19 caused the abrupt shift to remote learning at UTS in late March, the six workshops in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (DAB) faced the prospect of sitting idle for the duration of the lockdown.
Greg Martens, Fabrications Workshops Manager at DAB, saw this as an opportunity to put the university’s facilities to good use.
‘We heard through our community connections that frontline workers in local organisations were short of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). Low supplies of face masks and face shields meant they were reusing existing PPE, or in some cases fashioning makeshift face shields out of office stationery,’ says Greg.
Greg organised a team of nine Faculty technical staff to produce two face shield designs and a face mask design, using open source and existing products to achieve a rapid turnaround. In total, four hundred prototypes were produced for the community sector, as proof of concept and to cover immediate shortfalls during the COVID-19 emergency. The units were donated to a community organisation in Redfern.
Greg Martens with Ashlee Donahue, Mudgin-Gal Coordinator, and Aunty Bronwyn Penrith, Directore of Mudgin-Gal
Mudgin-Gal – community need in the UTS precinct
On Friday, May 29, representatives from the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building handed over all 400 units of PPE including masks and face shields, to Mudgin-Gal. Mudgin-Gal is an Aboriginal organisation based in inner-city Sydney. As a service run by Aboriginal women, for Aboriginal women, it is unique. It offers safe haven and active support for women, girls and their young families through peer-to-peer services.
Meaning ‘women’s place’, Mudgin-Gal operates through the efforts of volunteers and intermittent funding mainly on a project-by-project basis. As such, the breadth, depth and continuity of services it provides is under constant threat, and its day-to-day administration and other critical requirements are unfunded.
Mudgin-Gal is the Grandmother of Redfern. It provides positive cultural and social networking for Aboriginal women. It offers in-home family support; provision of expert referral for accommodation, legal and medical referral services as well as court support and post-release services.
Long term Director of Mudgin Gal Aunty Bronwyn Penrith facilitated the exchange:
'The gifting of these masks from DAB will help with awareness and promotion of safety for our Aboriginal community and clients. Especially with our Elders and making sure that they are cared for because the old age pensioners don’t get regular extra pay in COVID. We are trying to fill the gaps with our drop off service now and these masks help us to it safely. They are an important addition to the things we drop off for safety and wellbeing in COVID. Some of us went to the important huge #BlackLivesMatter – Stop Blacks Deaths in Custody march in Sydney city wearing these very masks it was a real moment of change. The masks enabled our people to go - it meant we weren’t risking wellbeing and showed we were ensuring community safety. The smaller masks were very popular especially the ones Koori design materials. Women’s empowerment is key with this gift. We look forward to developing this important relationship with UTS DAB as a local university that is taking a genuine partnership approach.'
Technology for good
‘Along with teaching and learning, research is our core business,’ says Greg. ‘In times of crisis we can lead the way in offering technology-driven solutions. For example, one of our face shield designs can be robotically printed in a matter of minutes, rather than the usual lead time of anywhere from four to 12 weeks that traditional plastic injection moulding takes to set up’.
While there are regulatory and legal aspects to sign off prior to manufacturing the PPE designs commercially, ‘feedback from medical professionals so far has been very positive, and there is a lot of interest in PPE from aged care services, opticians and dentists.’, reflects Greg.
‘We feel optimistic that the products we’ve created will be able to be used broadly.'
Community needs have been heightened during the COVID-19 emergency and UTS have committed to supporting groups in the Sydney precinct and beyond.
While the world looked on as the US, the UK and countries in Europe struggle to cope with shortfalls in basic Personal protective equipment, Australian universities are examining ways they can proactively address the impacts of the pandemic, and ensure community resilience.
Faculty General Manager, Sarah Henning, said, ‘we are all so fortunate to be in Australia right now. Our health workers have not needed us to find a PPE solution for the COVID crises for PPE. However, there has been a need in the community sector and we are not completely out of the woods yet’
The DAB Workshop Team who involved in this project are:
Andrew Purnell
Richard Musgrove
Tony Jones
Brooke Zhang
Milena Ratkovic
Antoinette El-Alam
Tran Dang
Gwyn Jones
Phil Inwood