Houston Architects Predict Big Changes to Building Design Thanks To COVID-19
Buildings like these new Rice University classrooms designed to allow a class of 50 students to socially distance are a hint at how architecture will change thanks to COVID-19.
Photo by Schaefer Edwards
When Albert Pope heard on the news that it took four years to develop a mumps vaccine and that it was the fastest a cure for a disease was ever created, he realized COVID-19 would probably be around for the foreseeable future.
As an architecture professor at Rice University, Pope knows he and his fellow architects will have a key role in helping society respond to the long term impacts of the pandemic. Architects across the globe are grappling with how COVID-19 will reshape the way new buildings are designed and how old ones are modified for years to come.
"I don't think we'll go back to business as usual," Pope said.
Two weeks into a fall semester like no other, Rice is in the middle of figuring out how to bring students together face-to-face while still keeping them safe from COVID-19. Over the summer, Rice installed four new 50-by-70-foot massive tent-like buildings in an empty field on campus. These Provisional Campus Facilities are designed to accommodate classes of up to 50 students while still allowing for the CDC recommended six feet of social distancing, and are decked-out with air-conditioning, projectors and all the amenities of modern classrooms.
Rice has also installed multiple large metal canopies across campus, providing open-air places for students to gather outdoors where its harder to spread COVID-19. I think a lot of this is an experiment, Pope said. We obviously need more space.
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https://www.houstonpress.com/news/architects-expect-big-design-shifts-thanks-to-covid-19-11493196