Being labeled 'vertical cruise ships' and carrying explosive potential, high rise office buildings have all the ingredients to become a COVID-19 hot spot. From ventilation to elevators, many of the key design aspects of high rise office buildings neglect to consider the risk for the spread of disease.
Elevators
Whilst an average sky rise office building can have 10 or more elevators and usually meet the needs of the building tenants in normal circumstances, with social distancing, the number of people allowed in a single elevator has been reduced on average from 6-10 to 1-2. This makes rush hour at the office an even bigger nightmare and also posing as a significant health risk as a high traffic area.
Ventilation
Whilst most commercial building and high rises have their own ventilation systems aimed to filter air and reduce pollutants, the air will never be as clean as a smaller building with open windows. Smaller office buildings with windows that are able to open allow for greater ventilation. For this reason, many employees feel safer returning to office buildings with windows that can be opened.
Cleaning time
With mandatory cleaning of the workplace of individual testing positive to COVID-19, it should come as no surprise that the larger the building the longer the downtime. Hence, with a smaller building, it can be much easier to disinfect and ensure it is clean, meaning you and your team can return to work sooner.
Safety in numbers (small numbers)
It should come as no surprise that the more people you have coming in and out of a building the more chance there is that an infected individual will enter into the area. Put simply, when comparing an office building with 10 people to an office building with 100, the 10 person office building is 10 times less likely to have an infected individual within the building. Additionally, contact tracing is far easier within a small building.
