Paper

Proactive Not Reactive: Pandemic-Prepared Commercial Architecture

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Abstract

Throughout the last millennium, humans have experienced four known respiratory pandemics: The Black Death in 1347, Tuberculosis (from the late 1800s, to mid-1900s), the Spanish Flu of 1918, and COVID-19 (current), that have shifted the way people thought about and used space. The Black Death, for example, introduced the concept of quarantining (Huremović, 2019). The Spanish Flu was the first major pandemic to introduce the notion that one could not simply ‘escape’ the sickness. Tuberculosis took quarantining a step further with revolving quarantine huts in which the patient was exposed to fresh air and would be turned to face the sunlight (Campbell, 2005). Lastly, COVID-19 called for the return to indoor quarantine rooms, with access to the outdoors restricted to limited numbers along with the highly suggested distance of six feet between people. After the recent Ebola outbreak in 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) created resources to track the research and development of existing diseases to better inform how to mitigate the next one, or ‘Disease X’ (WHO, 2022). This term gained traction as a placeholder to describe any pandemic caused by a pathogen (such as bacteria or a virus) currently unknown to cause human disease. Some medical experts believe that COVID-19 may not have been Disease X but instead is a milder version of what Disease X may be (Tahir etal., 2021). As medical professionals have recognized through the development and study of Disease X, it appears another pandemic is inevitable. This paper explores ways to use architecture to help better prepare for it. This research aims to include architecture within this preparation process for Disease X to reduce the spread and effects of respiratory disease in pandemic conditions. In addition, this research will provoke an architecture that can reduce the spread of Disease X by analyzing existing architectural responses to respiratory outbreaks, interpreting architectural trends from the four major pandemics, developing a taxonomy of strategies, and proposing new ones for future outbreaks.

Keywords: respiratory health, pandemic architecture, ventilation, daylighting, adaptive architecture

How to Cite:

Garceau, S. & McCormick, L., (2023) “Proactive Not Reactive: Pandemic-Prepared Commercial Architecture”, Building Technology Educators’ Society 2023(1), 274-281. doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/btes.1964