The Healthy Building of the Future

May 22, 2020 by Amanda Curl posted in: Help for Business Owners & Occupiers

We are all now more aware of public health following the outbreak of Covid-19 and given most of us spend the majority of our working days indoors, as we go forward we will have more expectations that the place we choose to work at is a healthy building. Research suggests that our health can be more affected by our physical space than lifestyle.  Being able to promote the health of your premises may be seen as a recruitment incentive. Not only that a healthy environment will improve productivity and can help with environmental issues when energy saving methods are considered. 

An immediate concern as we move into the next stage of easing lockdown will be does everyone need to be onsite at the same time or can you stagger shifts? Also it is a time to be more aware of visitors to the site and what they are bringing with them. Is more security needed?  

Ventilation is important. A low humidity level aids the spread of viruses. 

Levels of  humidity in the range of 40 to 70% are recommended for the workplace environment.  The more outdoor air the better so future builds could have more and larger windows. 

Those same future buildings may also see a lot more hands-free features, such as touchless entrances, lifts, sinks, and toilets. 

Keeping employees fit and well could see more green spaces and communal areas, that are distinct from the normal working area, become part of design as well as points to go to that allow workers to get up and move about such as a drinks station.  

However as we have experienced in the last couple of months there may not even be a need for a physical office to run a business. Euroterra Capital property developers have recently announced a new residential development in London that will include “enhanced working from home facilities”.

This entry was tagged: Office Space