Foster + Partners has acted quickly in the fight against Covid-19 to design a general-purpose prototype face visor, suitable for cleaning and reuse and aimed specifically at fast, mass production.

The move comes following similar ventures by HTA, led by its senior associate Richard Foxley turning its own 3D printers to produce face masks for NHS staff and sharing details of its work with Foster + Partners and others, while BIG, KPF and Handel Architects have also joined forces to manufacture shields.

Foster + Partners – which also announced it was furloughing staff and asked others to take a 20% pay cut this week – said it was sharing the design templates and material specifications (downloadable in a link below) as an open-source design asset. This, it added, is to encourage both designers and in particular large-scale manufacturers to investigate the potential of digital and laser cutting machines as an alternative to 3D printing technology.

The prototype visor, designed by a team of industrial designers, modelmakers, architects and analysts, is made from three components: a visor made from 0.5mm optically clear PETG, an interlocking soft PP headband, and a surgical silicone rubber head strap that ties the two together. These are all cut on Foster + Partners’ digital flatbed cutter. Each visor can be cut from sheets in under 30 seconds and the elements can be assembled in under a minute. ‘With our single cutting machine, we were able to cut and assemble components for 1,000 visor masks in a day, representing a reduction of days in the time taken to produce 3D-printed alternatives’, said the practice.

The visors can be produced and assembled or flat-packed and distributed in large quantities quickly, and with the important advantage that the visor can be easily disassembled, cleaned, sanitised and reused, addressing the growing shortage of raw materials for visor production. Foster’s is now delivering these prototype visors to a number of London hospitals where they are being tested and exploring means of getting the design approved for mass production and use by health workers.