人体气管支架中的穿孔薄壳结构
Tonkin Liu shrinks architectural shell lace structure to create prototype windpipe stent

由专筑网郑善廷，李韧编译

建筑师Mike Tonkin和Anna Liu 制作了一款气管支架模型，可以用于气管移植手术。

Tonkin和Liu是Tonkin Liu建筑事务所的创始人，该事务所总部位于伦敦。他们用单层面结构技术设计了一种穿孔薄壳结构，并将它应用到气管支架的制作之中。

不同于气管手术后常用的管状网状支架，他们设计的支架是C形，并且能很好地贴合每个人喉咙的形状。

这个支架模型目前采用了医用硅酮这种原料进行生产。为了让伤口透气，以及让药物到达特定组织部位防止伤口感染，它的表面有着穿孔形态。

Architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu have created a prototype stent that adapts to a patient's throat for use after tracheal transplant surgery.
Tonkin and Liu, founders of London-based architecture studio Tonkin Liu, adapted the design of their single surface structural technology – called the shell lace structure – to create the stent.
Unlike the tubular mesh stents commonly used after surgery on the windpipe, their version is C-shaped and fits to the individual shape of each person's throat.
The prototype has been manufactured from medical grade silicone with a perforated surface that allows the wound to breath, and makes drug delivery to the tissues possible, which together prevent infection.


Tonkin Liu的支架模型是一个缩小版的穿孔薄壳结构／Tonkin Liu's prototype stent is a smaller version of its shell lace architecture structure

为了嵌入支架，医生需要将它翻转过来并放置在气管口。由于人体自身的外压，它会铺开并稳定地固定在身体内部，无需担心滑落。

这个模型是“令人惊叹且史无前例的发明，同时跟现有相关装置相比，具有突破特征。”伦敦大学学院喉科学教授Martin Birchall如此说到。

Tonkin和Liu经过了10年的研究构思了这款穿孔薄壳结构，它就如同自然界一份子般重要。

建筑师与来自自然历史博物馆的科学家进行合作，从贝壳和植物的构造获得了灵感，并将其抽象化，构思了这个形态。

Tonkin Liu建筑事务所之前仅仅将这种结构运用在建筑中，比如超轻结构的展览馆、桥梁以及塔楼。

To insert the stent, doctors must turn the item inside out and place it inside the windpipe cavity. It then unfurls and sits firmly within the patient's body due to the natural external pressure, without danger of slippage.
The prototype is "a remarkable and unprecedented stent invention, that is ground-breaking in the context of currently available devices," said Martin Birchall, UCL professor of laryngology.
Tonkin and Liu created the architectural shell lace structure, following a decade of research, as a sheet material that would perform as efficiently as items in the natural world.
The sheets were designed through abstracting design principles from the physiological makeup of molluscs and plants, in collaboration with scientists from the Natural History Museum.
Previously Tonkin Liu had only used the structure for architectural purposes, such as ultra-lightweight pavilions, bridges and towers.


这个支架可用在气管移植手术中／The stent is designed for use after tracheal transplant surgery

2014年，在一个论坛上，他们从一位临床研究者那里了解到这种治疗需求。于是他们开始使用这种结构制作模型支架。

接着，他们和工程师Arup一起研究，深入发展他们的想法。与此同时，他们还获得了英国政府Innovate UK的创新基金，主要用于项目的研发。

这个本来用于建筑中的穿孔薄壳结构经过反复研究与调整，尺寸得以缩小，因此适合医疗装置。

Alerted to an unmet medical need by a clinical researcher at a talk they took part in 2014, the architects set about making prototypes of possible stents using the structure as their starting point.
They worked with engineers Arup to develop the concept, and secured funding for a year long research and development project from Innovate UK, the British government's innovation fund.
The architectural version of the shell lace structure has now been adapted and recreated 500 times smaller for the medical device.


这个医用支架大小是常用建筑形式的1/500／The medical stent is 500 times smaller than the architectural form

为了设计这个模型，Tonkin Liu建筑事务所扫描了猪的气管，3D打印了一个五倍大小的模型用于研究，是因为考虑到动物的喉部和人类的比较相似。完成之后，建筑师们在工作室里像测试建筑模型一样对仿生支架模型进行测试。

“对我们来说，这样的研究跟我们观察建筑场地的特征没什么区别。如果说独到之处，那可能是它背后的需求和机遇。”Liu这样告诉Dezeen的记者。

他们发现，气管由一系列的C形环组成，通过柔软的组织相互连接。当气管上下移动时，组织在每个C形环之间拉伸压缩，基于这些成果，他们不断发展和测试新的模型去拟合效果。

“我们使用一系列简单的橡皮圈模型来模拟这些特征，而这些模型是项目的关键所在。”Liu说。

这个支架目前正在专利申请阶段，建筑师希望它可以全面用于气管移植手术，“我们的目标就是将这个穿孔薄壳支架投放到大规模生产中，从而为全球的患者带来益处。”Tonkin这样说道。

To design the prototype Tonkin Liu digitally scanned a pig's trachea, as the animal's throat is similar to that of a human, to create a 3D-printed model that was five times larger than life size. The architects tested this as they would an architectural model in the studio.
"To us it was no different to observing the particular characterises of a site. What were its peculiarities, the demands and the opportunities?" Liu told Dezeen.
They found that the trachea consists of a series of C-shaped rings, connected by softer tissues, which move up and down, with flexible tissue spanning the gap in the C. Using these findings, they developed models on which to develop and test the prototype stents.
"We mimicked these characteristic through a series of simple and intuitive rubber band models, which would later prove to be key to our invention," said Liu.
The stent is currently patent-pending and the architects hope that it will be rolled out for use in trachea transplant surgery: "Our aim is now to bring the Shell Lace Stent to manufacture stage and see it bring tangible benefits to patients globally," said Tonkin.


这个C形支架目前正在申请专利中／The C-shaped stent is currently patent-pending

Liu指出，建筑师善于使用最前沿的参数设计和制作工具，他们可以为医疗行业制作并且提供更好的医疗设备。

她还说：“过去的五到十年里，这些工具的发展意味着人们都能够负担得起曾经需要私人订制的产品，同时还会更加贴合需求，价格也更加实惠。”

“这说明，它的应用符合当下的需求。同时也更能够满足每个人的不同状况。”

除了为医疗行业提供设计，设计师们也经常打破传统医疗中心的形象，让其变得更亲切。比如Morag Mysercough设计的谢菲尔德的儿童医院，建筑就有着丰富的色彩，另外还有哥本哈根的彩绘癌症护理中心。

Liu points out that architects are very adept at working with cutting-edge digital design and fabrication tools, so have much to offer the medical profession in creating better medical devices.
"The advancement of these tools in the past five to 10 years have meant that bespoke and complex form can be made more responsively and affordable," she said.
"This suits the tools' application to designing a much more bespoke, formally complex, fit-for-purpose device for different parts of the human body."
As well as designing for medical professional use, designers have often intervened to make medical centres for inviting, such as Morag Mysercough's colourful re-design of the wards at Sheffield Children's Hospital, and this painted cancer care centre in Copenhagen.