From the Black Death to leprosy, cholera, smallox - even the fictional Andromeda Strain - deadly diseases have resulted in the need to isolate large numbers of people from the general population.

While laws preventing people infected with the bubonic plague to travel freely have been enacted since the Dark Ages, the world's first institutionalized system of quarantine was established in Venice during the 1348 outbreak, which killed nearly 15 million people across Europe. Until the 18th century, when special buildings were built to sequester people exposed to harmful diseases, most cities instituted quarantine measures through the use of ships anchored off shore, or on nearby islands.

In sci fi film and fiction, quarantine sites run the gamut from space stations to remote islands to undersea satellites and beyond. Even the Biblical tale of Christ wandering in the desert for 40 days can be taken as a form of quarantine, which is based on the Latin for forty. With this in mind, Geoff Manaugh, founder of BLDGBLOG and formerly senior editor at Dwell, announced today a series of workshops this Fall to study the subject.

Meeting once a week in Manhattan, from October 6 to December 5, 2009, up to 14 studio participants will discuss the spatial implications of quarantine, each developing an individual design project in response to the theme.

A quick Google search turned up plenty of applications for design for quarantine. Left to right: Quarantine site roped off; Biohazard logo; U.S. Quarantine Stations in 2007. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In his announcement, Manaugh writes, "Quarantine is both an ancient spatial practice and a state of monitored isolation, dating back at least to the Black Death - if not to Christ's 40 days in the desert - yet it has re-emerged today as an issue of urgent biological, political, and even architectural importance in an era of global tourism and flu pandemics.

"Quarantine touches on serious constitutional issues associated with involuntary medical isolation, as well as on questions of governmental authority, regional jurisdiction, and the limits of inter-state cooperation....The design implications of quarantine stretch from the ballast water of ships to the way we shape our cities, from the clothes in travelers' suitcases to stray seeds stuck in the boot treads of hikers. Quarantine affects the pets we keep, the programs we download, and the machines we use in food-processing warehouses, worldwide."

Manaugh proposes bringing together a variety of media and approaches that would result in open ended access to the problem of designing for quarantine, whether the end results are to be designs for physical structures; quarantine-themed graphic novels; barrier-based urban games; or a series of informative public health posters.

"After all," he asks, "if we mapped the contents and locations of quarantine facilities worldwide, designed infographics to analyze the spread of invasive species, or the oral histories of the quarantined, what sorts of issues might we uncover?"

The results of the workshop will be presented in an exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in early 2010. To download information and the application for the worshops, go to BldgBlog. Landscapes of Quarantine is organized by Future Plural, an independent design lab launched by Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG and Nicola Twilley of Edible Geography.