Environmental Wellbeing: Engineering healthier spaces post Covid-19

As the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine offers fresh optimism that the end to the pandemic may be in sight, its prolonged distribution means that the virus continues to present a major challenge to the functioning of urban and architectural systems – as well as economic, industrial and societal ones – worldwide. We can also be certain that when people do return to their places of work in significant numbers, they will be much more aware of how the buildings they occupy affect their health.

The disruption caused by the pandemic has highlighted the centrality of built spaces in our lives – from the home, which has become an almost total presence in our architectural experience, to the workplace, which has been transformed in the search for appropriate social distancing, and the city, which is seeing change from urban transport networks to local highstreets. We have become more conscious of our built environment at every scale.

This is an opportunity for designers and engineers to discuss with clients important human and health-focused topics related to indoor environmental quality, and to promote innovative approaches, such as distributed ventilation, advanced sensing and smart controls, that can support sustainability, flexibility and wellbeing in the built environment.

 

The disruption caused by the pandemic has highlighted the centrality of built spaces in our lives … We have become more conscious of our built environment at every scale.

 

The fundamental changes to how we interact with buildings are, in many cases, advancing trends that were already established. In other ways, the pandemic is acting as a brake or forcing a rethink of principles that were the norm. For example, the prioritisation of health and wellbeing, remote working, online deliveries and the use of digital technology have continued to increase in importance, whereas spontaneous meetings and interactions with others is now discouraged. The virus has upended the increasing expectation that the workplace be a place that fulfils larger societal and wellbeing functions: a hybrid space blurring the boundaries between life and work, a place of deeper connection, identity, sociality and experience.

Given this acceleration in some areas, and reversals in others, the development of environmental strategies is at an interesting crossroads. Over the past few months, the Environmental Engineering group at Foster + Partners has been exploring how these developments will affect our industry and others worldwide. Undoubtedly, each project will be unique, but what remains foundational is that the quality of our environmental design is based upon a renewed understanding of human health and wellbeing.

The most effective environmental strategies have always been tied to occupant wellbeing by both definition and design. After the Covid-19 crisis, this will continue to be as important as ever, not only at the inception of a project but throughout its lifecycle. The more agile approach to living, work and leisure space developed during the pandemic – a hybrid of remote and physical interactivity – could become even more digitally driven as communication technologies continue to advance. The questions then arise: why return to our shared physical spaces, like the workplace, when we've made the adjustment to a virtual, decentralised one? Why not invest in a wholly digital future?

If we choose to shift our investment from designing places towards virtual substitutes, we stand to lose the rich potential for shared environments to support the thriving of individuals. We must balance real estate savings and commute reductions with emerging evidence of the psychological and physical strains associated with isolating activities, such as homeworking. Is long-term distancing really a direction that supports social and environmental sustainability, with human wellbeing at its heart?

Improving air quality has been a growing theme within the architecture and engineering industries in recent years and this trend is likely to be accelerated by the current health crisis. The spread of airborne pathogens – such as the Sars-Cov-2 virus – throughout the built environment is intrinsically connected to the design and operation of ventilation systems – the most recognisable of which is the mechanical air-conditioning unit.

Health and wellbeing issues – especially those connected to ideas of fresh air and natural light –have redefined architectural design in the past; most notably, in response to the tuberculosis health crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century. The sanatoria designed by architects such as Alvar Aalto placed their emphasis on cleanliness, sunlight and outdoor space. They were typified by geometric designs, expansive glazing, light and white-washed surfaces, and roof terraces replete with cruise ship-style railings and access to fresh outside air.

However, these pioneering features would become hallmarks not just of sanatoria but of much that we now define as modernist architecture. As the Princeton professor Beatriz Colomina writes in her book X-Ray Architecture, the architectural style of the arch-modernists was ‘unambiguously that of the hospital.’

Foster + Partners has been preoccupied with creating ‘sustainable’, people-centric buildings long before they were known as such. Most notably in early projects such as the unbuilt Country Offices for Fred Olsen in Norway, studies for the Island of Gomera, and the Willis Faber & Dumas headquarters in Ipswich.

Today, our bespoke sustainability framework helps evaluate projects in a holistic manner. Based on ten themes – wellbeing, community impact, energy and carbon, mobility and connectivity, resources, water, land and ecology, social equity, planning for change and feedback – the framework goes beyond the focus of most ratings systems. These themes, we believe, must be analysed together, and studied over the whole life cycle of a building.

 

Despite evidence for the benefits of natural ventilation, it is much less widely adopted than other ‘green’ strategies.

 

Recent projects including Bloomberg’s headquarters in London and the net-zero-carbon Apple Park in Cupertino, California, embody these principles.

Flexible and forward-looking, Apple Park, which features the '‘world’s largest natural ventilation system’', sits low amid tall trees, draws its energy from the sun and brings the invigorating views and fresh air from the park through its all-glass facades.

The practice has worked closely with Bloomberg to help facilitate the building’s adaptation as a safe environment during the Covid-19 pandemic. As we work with clients and our own staff on a return to places of work and leisure, we continue to develop a repertoire of tactics in accordance with best practice, scientific research and government advice. In the adaptive re-design of buildings, and the design of new ones, there is an opportunity to ensure that these tactics fit into broader strategies of resilience: to create in-built capacities among organisations to confront challenges and disruptions – such as a global pandemic – that may lie ahead.

Segregated mechanical ventilation designs, are a promising trend within the industry in this regard. A resilient method for improved pathogen control, decentralised – or distributed – ventilation would limit the spread of contaminants and provide time for further action to be taken prior to a building-wide risk event.

Today, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems are often interconnected, rather than segregated, and serve multiple zones within a building. There are practical reasons for this but, given the focus on infectious disease, it will be important to assess the benefits against those of segregated ventilation.

Another example of resilience, dramatically put to the test less than a year after its installation, is the environmental system employed in Foster + Partners’ new health centre for the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), completed in 2019. Known as the Samson Pavilion, it embodies a future of integrated and interactive health education, combining two schools of medicine, a school of dental medicine and a school of nursing. Key elements of each school are arranged around a 25-metre- (80-foot-) high central courtyard – the social heart of the pavilion.

 

Epidemics and disease can be positive drivers of innovation … that reflect our ability not only to adapt to catastrophe, but to improve conditions for people and societies in its wake.

 

The environmental engineering of the courtyard was a particular challenge, given Cleveland’s annual temperature swing of up to 42°C (107°F), and a wide variety of occupancies. Although the team could never have foreseen the specific impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Pavilion’s environmental systems were deliberately specified with enough in-built flexibility and resilience to cope with future changes in function.

In April 2020, during the early peak of the Covid-19 emergency, the building was temporarily repurposed as a surge hospital for the city, with the courtyard providing over 300 beds. As reported in the CIBSE Journal: ‘The building was converted in less than a month and the HVAC systems’ flexibility and capacity meant they hardly needed altering … .’

We know that the future of engineering, construction and architecture will continue to be shaped by integrated thinking and innovative solutions, as it was at the Cleveland Clinic. At the forefront of this will be the implementation of artificial intelligence, computational design and smart technologies. Their design and use will be further optimised according to generative design, sensors and data collection, which enables more intelligent analyses of occupancy and spatial needs in real-time. But technology is only one factor in design; architectural environments are a dynamic interrelation of the people and processes that comprise a building’s scope.

A key principle in reducing Covid-19 infection rates is to avoid person-to-person viral transmission. Hopefully, the need to maintain social distancing will be a temporary anomaly rather than an ongoing trend. However, it is conceivable that, in response to the mental-health implications of lockdowns, quarantines and isolation, people will be more protective of their personal space in the future.

 

We should consider this an opportunity to … take a broader look at the health of our buildings’ users and the planet, and see them as integral parts of the environmental engineering ecology.

 

In the short term, reducing the time we spend in shared spaces – which, by extension, should prevent the build-up of crowds – is important to lower the exposure to virus-transmitting aerosols. Existing technology could be leveraged to support this, and buildings could display information about crowded areas in real-time, direct to a smart phone app, similar to occupancy displays on trains.

A secure digital identity including biometrics and location information, as well as instant communication, can be a useful way to manage access and monitor health. However, although countries like South Korea have been largely praised for their use of technology to track the virus – and its citizens – there are privacy concerns in the collection of personal data.

When our presence in a shared space is essential, even if it is socially distanced, we must also look to prevent viral dissemination through contact. We have seen cleaning protocols revised across commercial buildings, increasing in both frequency and strength. While this will undoubtedly limit contagion rates, the selection of disinfection products needs to be carefully considered as these have an impact on air quality and can be a cause of irritation or trigger asthma (unwelcome in the context of a respiratory disease). Going a step further, avoiding unnecessary contact with shared surfaces altogether, through the use of touchless technologies, will not just further prevent the spread of Covid-19, but also other diseases.

While the disruption caused by the pandemic is daunting, it is not unprecedented. It can be seen as part of a larger history from which we can usefully learn. In this history, epidemics and disease can be positive drivers of innovation, advancing design solutions and aesthetic movements that reflect our ability not only to adapt to catastrophe, but to improve conditions for people and societies in its wake.

As Norman Foster said in his interview with the United Nations, in the wake of disruption ‘historical precedent shows that cities have the opportunity to be transformed to being safer, more beautiful, quieter, cleaner, healthier – greener in the most literal sense.’

Our environmental response to the Covid-19 emergency must, therefore, be seen as an opportunity to advance the sustainability agenda.

The return to offices and other shared spaces throws into sharp relief the relationship of our internal environments to larger infrastructures, such as work, housing and transportation. We should consider this an opportunity to radically re-imagine their relationship and take a broader look at the health of our buildings’ users and the planet, and see them as an integral part of the environmental engineering ecology. The size of our practice and the range of its disciplines enables the Environmental Engineering group to leverage this diverse skill base and take a truly holistic approach to the challenge of Covid-19 and build for resilience beyond it.

Through a collective experience of crisis and uncertainty, there is a sense that we are globally united in this struggle. Now is the time for building designers to reaffirm commitment to designing resilient, sustainable and healthy buildings that will serve generations to come.