Anti-viral arquitecture in
High-rise buildings
It is clear that Covid-19 is
going to change the way
we live, work and play in
the years to come and
architects and designers will
have a very important role
to play in adapting the built
environment to the new
post Covid-19 habits.
The 4 Towers, Madrid
Iñigo Ortiz Díez de Tortosa
Ortiz León Architects
CTBUH Spain representative
April 2020
The impact of Covid -19 will not be temporary but, on the contrary, its
consequences will last in time due to social demand. Preventing pandemic
diseases will not demand substantial changes in architectural design, but will
constrain it in some aspects. It will be more important than ever for high-
rise buildings not to produce negative mental pressure on the people
using them.
On the one hand, it will be necessary to rethink architectural design and
material palette selection and, on the other, to assess the resilience of high-
rise buildings against pandemics and their adaptability to the latter.
Taking the tall building´s structure as an example, not only has it to bear its
own weight and the weight of its intended uses, but also it has to withstand
potential unusual external actions such as earthquakes or fires and has to be
perceived as being safe by users.
In recent times the only episode in tall buildings (2003) was recorded in HK
when in Amoy Gardens (19 block towers) were overrun by SARS. In some
blocks all the inhabitants were confinaded to their apartments and the rest of
the blocks where emptied for decontamination. The complex were retroffited
with a new drainage system (cause of the problem of the virus spread) to
prevent regurgitation of sewer gases.
Some designs will be oriented to prevent the spread of viruses and bacteria
and others will be born straight out of the new use of spaces and others.
New design approaches will be required for public areas such as lobbies or
horizontal and vertical communication spaces while also an alternative point
of view will be needed when focusing on private areas or work areas, both for
single use or collaborative, increasing the “breathing room”.
 Additionally, there will be objective aspects that will be addressed by specific
designs coupled with subjective aspects to enhance user perception of being
in “safe” spaces.

These design changes, derived from the exceptional current circumstances,

could become global trends such as “healthy buildings” (a concept developed
in the 90s), healthy eating habits within buildings or well-being buildings.

There are lots of new products already on the market to fight the spread
of virus and bacteria, yet their use is currently limited to specific areas such
as operating rooms or research centers. So these may be redesigned to be
applied massively in buildings. Interior design will focus on creating multiuse
furniture and making spaces roomier.

Sustainable certifications such as WELL or LEED will need to respond to new

health requirements like technical standards such as ASHRAE. Tall buildings, as
large human containers, will be evaluated not as the number its “workplaces”or
inhabitants capacity but as experience hábitats for comfort human beings.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things), both currently

in full technological development, will obviously be essential for the application,
monitoring and control of both design measures and those that affect behaviors
within buildings.

In constrast to urban concentration which, in principle, is more sustainable and

where high-rise buildings play an important role, urban sprawl may experience
an upturn in urban planning. Consequently high-rise buildings should develop
“ the set theory “ inside them, in other words, all spaces, accounted as sets,
can be nested or niched in different sizes, inclusions, uses or types in order to
be able to stop and control disemination of desease in the building.

Common areas
Common areas,public spaces
will still play an important
role within skyscrapers
and they will require more
careful and crafted design
so as to reduce the risks
of spreading diseases which
they inherently possess.

The Window Building, . Lobby

Demand for “contactless” buildings will grow substantially: access control,
lifts without key pads, voice bells, automatic doors not only for building access
but also for entry to private offices or homes, with facial recognition, QR
codes and motion activation becoming widespread. Smart phones and
5G networks will play an important role in activating these systems. Buildings
will need to be resilient and respond to potential cyber-attacks on local
networks that support WIFI and 5G.
 The number of elevators could increase due to the number of passengers per
cabin will be limited. And stretcher elevator will be compulsory.
As buildings go up, lobbies and concourses will feature longer antiviral doormats,
cloakrooms and self disinfecting lockers, ad hoc reception desks, temperature
control arches and enhanced control on delivery rooms. Dispensing machines
providing disposable masks and gloves will also be installed. Everything that
enters buildings, be it people, materials, products, air and so on, must be
sanitarily controlled and demonstrate it has not had human contact.

New concepts of spaces will appear such as “testing booths”, “no shared
items rooms” or “disinfection cloak room“ and outsourced laundry will be
monitored.

Material finishes will need to be easily cleanable, being as smooth as possible,

and should not deteriorate with the use of disinfection products. Furthermore,
materials there are “virus-clean”such as paints with titanium dioxide or
materials on which viruses cannot be deposited or only live on them for a
short period of time, as appears to be the case with metals such as copper,
will be used in places where there is unavoidable skin contact such as stair
handrails. We also expect a radical change in the choice of pavements where
viruses normally tend to deposit.

Natural ventilation or “free-cooling” will have more special and decentralized

filters (photocatalytic thecnology plus F8-F9 filters) and it will be mandatory
to increase the levels of renewed or clean air per hour and per person. Low-
speed HVAC systems and cold / heat radiation that do not need air
movement (cold beams, radiators, etc.) will be promoted. Temperature /
humidity of indoor spaces will be adjusted to avoid environmental conditions
that help virus spread. Drainage system and its ventilation will requiere regular
and careful check.

Sky view observatory in Crsital Tower, Madrid

The sky-view observatories capacity will be reduced. Lift, sky lobby and
atrium design standards shall change and increase in size allowing for lower
concentrations of people and wider social distancing. In the same way,
washroom design shall favor cabins that include a sink and toilet to avoid
accumulation of users in the waiting sink areas; additionally faucets, infrared
paper or soap dispensers and automatic flush toilets will become common
practice.

New hygiene protocols will require increased storage space, larger changing
rooms and wider intermediate access spaces. Furthermore, construction
sites will require larger ancillary spaces for workers (dining rooms, etc.),
 Construction materials will have to enter construction sites with a disinfection
certificate and a sanitary compliance certificate will need to be issued upon
delivery to the buildings. Facility managers and maintenance teams will need
to implement prevention and infection detection protocols during the whole
lifetime of a building.

“Green architecture” featuring large private landscaped spaces in and

around the high-rise buildings will increase the available and usable area within
a building in order to meet new social distance requirements.
Private spaces
Design of private offices and Workplace:
residential spaces in high • Occupation ratios that had recently reached very low values of up to 6sqm
per employee will increase again in order to meet recommended social
-rise builgings shall become distancing. In other words, density will decrease, and it will no longer be
successfully adaptable possible to share electronic devices or work stations.
to prolonged isolation • “Hotdesking” may be drastically reduced by favoring the assignation of
permanent work stations and co-working offices spaces will have to review
periods due to epidemics
their concept and adapt to very strict regulations regarding break areas,
and pandemics. Recent cafeterias, etc. Companies will have to provide guaranteed healthy working
confinement experiences conditions to their employees by applying the recommendations given by
have helped identify the health authorities.
• Workstations may be compartmentalized again with 1.50m partitions due
deficiencies in current to virus tendency to drop and spread at lower heights.
residential design trends.
Residential:
• Residentuial units in tall buildings may increase in size allowing for a better
adaptation to life in confinement.
• Outdoor terraces will become very appealing in hih-rise buildings.
They must be designed to allow for certain activity on them and their
special use in the event of a epidemic/pandemic to capture vitamin D.
• Design of residential units should be flexible enough to allow for one or
two people to “live, work and play” at the same time, improving ventilation
and incorporating ergonomic and multipurpose furniture to boost user
health, increase storage capacity and flexible spaces to be able to change
clothes at any time.
• New residential typologies may appear, clearly aimed at epidemics/
pandemics with self-cultivation areas; a bedroom will always have an
attached bathroom to be able to confine a person from the family unit
with independent ventilation, etc. Even antiviral changing rooms at the
main lobby of buildings and flats.

Summary
To sum up, we can say that new buildings will have to pass the “sanitary
filter”, being designed to allow a soft-landing to new restrictions in our daily
lives and being resilient, that is, having the ability to assume and recover in
epidemic/pandemic scenarios and ultimately that are also easily disinfected and
flexible enough to occasionally host health uses.

Many existing high-rise buildings cannot, at first, adapt so easily to this new
cultural mindset and although they may be adapted, they may not have
social acceptance for irrational and unmanageable reasons, being labeled as
“sick buildings”, and therefore will inevitably need to undergo an anti-viral
repositioning.