International. Creating a safe and healthy work environment has always been an attraction used by employers to attract top talent and motivate them to feel comfortable and productive in the office. What has changed in the last year is what seems "safe and healthy." As we approach a year since COVID really started to have an impact on Western countries, our commercial office buildings are now starting to take a long-term view of this new health and safety environment to give employees the confidence to return to work. The past year has shown that widespread work from home (WFH) is possible, now the construction sector is striving to prove that safe and healthy workplaces are also possible in the post-pandemic era.
A Pew Research Center study in December found that 71% of workers in the U.S. are working from home, compared to just 20% before the pandemic. While stay-at-home orders and corporate security policies are the clear and obvious reason for this, the experience of working from home for so long has convinced employees that they can do it with the WFH and many have found that they prefer it. The same study reported that 54% of workers would want to continue working from home even after the pandemic ended, presenting a potentially catastrophic shift for the commercial real estate sector. The sector has responded with a new range of workplace safety and health initiatives led by smart building technologies.
Contact with surfaces has proven to be a key concern for the spread of infections, which is a real problem for buildings where a wide range of occupants use the same door handles, light switches, elevator buttons, sinks and toilets. While additional cleaning should be part of any solution, it has become clear that no feasible level of cleanliness can keep up with the many surfaces shared by the hundreds of occupants in our multi-story commercial buildings. The answer should be to minimize contact with surfaces altogether, using smartphone controls and contactless technology that has become commonplace in card payment processes.
"The contactless issue will go beyond payment and enter access control, through NFC, RFID, Bluetooth or contactless cards, in transport systems and buildings. In an effort to stimulate economic activity, our office buildings will become testing grounds for 'hands-free' technology as human-to-physical surface touchpoints are assessed to look for alternatives," predicts our 2020 IoT report. We will see hands-free controls for construction devices such as light switches, thermostats, elevators, vending machines, coffee makers, dispensers, etc., based on RFID, motion sensors, haptics, smartphones or voice control."
In the recently completed Zero Irving building in New York City, which will open later this year, state-of-the-art contactless technology will allow workers to reach their desks without touching any common surfaces in their path. Building employees will use an app on their smartphone to activate the building's electric revolving doors, then open the safety turnstiles automatically, the same app can also be used to control the elevator to get them to your floor where they can walk to your office. without danger. This non-contact experience from the street to the desk has been designed to minimize contact with surfaces and thus limit the spread of infection.
"It's a completely contactless experience for visitors to the building. Not only is this great for public health, but it also helps the efficiency of the building's operation," said Spencer Levine, president of RAL Companies, the developers of the Zero Irvine building. We also have new air quality monitoring stations on each floor. This allows real-time monitoring of indoor air quality in all common spaces of the building," he continued.
According to ASHRAE, the use of combinations of filters and air purifiers that achieve MERV 13 or better performance levels for air recirculated by HVAC systems is a fundamental recommendation to reduce exposure to airborne infectious diseases. Meanwhile, public health information during the pandemic has made a clear distinction between the rate of transmission between indoor and outdoor air quality environments. This has led commercial building designers to bring the exterior to the interior through ventilation systems and architectural design concepts.
In the new building at 141 Willoughby Ave in Brooklyn, HVAC systems have been adapted to provide 10% outdoor air through ventilation, a 77% increase to the outdoor air code in New York City. "In addition to the higher level of outdoor air throughout the building, tenants will be able to further increase their outdoor air for a total of 40% + outdoor air at their option through dedicated shutter systems provided to each tenant floor," said Cooper Kramer, Managing Director of building development company Savanna.
Air quality is an obvious improvement for buildings striving to reduce occupant infection rates, but invisible air quality improvements do little to encourage people to return to the office and make them feel safe. While contactless technology and attentive cleaning practices offer a visible symbol of protection that helps occupants feel safe in the work environment, air quality needs to be explained to have any impact on employee confidence. New buildings, therefore, will find new ways to show improvements in air quality to demonstrate improvements in the health of commercial buildings.
"We believe indoor air quality measurements are the types of measurements that will be shown everywhere on commercial property in the future, the same way we see climate," said Julie Goudie, communications manager for Sterling Bay, a major developer in the Chicago Area.
Through contactless systems and air quality improvements, our commercial buildings strive to create safer and healthier buildings in response to the pandemic. These technologies also lay the groundwork for a variety of convenience and productivity improvements that enterprise tenants have long demanded in the workplace. However, to cope with the rapid shift towards remote work that has been unequivocally accelerated by the pandemic, the commercial real estate sector must now redouble its people-centred approach and set a significantly higher bar for workplace health and safety. .
"A lot of these improvements have gone from being enjoyable before the pandemic to things our buildings must now have because of the pandemic. We're trying to create the best, healthiest, safest environment to give people the confidence to know that when they return to the office, it will be safe," said Paul Teti, senior vice president of leasing and asset management at Columbia Property Trust in New York City. What really resonates with people is the design approach that suggests you're really thinking about each employee's experience while inhabiting the building."
Source: Memoori.
