This story is part of our insight series around the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current health crisis is upending our everyday lives. Children learning from home is a new reality for many across the globe and hour-by-hour changes are raising many questions: How long will schools remain closed? How can parents and educators make remote learning a happy and meaningful experience? How can we prevent or reduce the chances of this disruption happening again?
Learning communities across the world are responding.
With urgency and grit, they nimbly deliver a sense of stability and community to isolated families. Some are using otherwise–idle buses to deliver food to the many students who rely on school meals for nourishment, others are hosting spirit weeks via social media to help children feel connected, and some districts are using their resources to deliver hand sanitizer where it is urgently needed.
These responses shed a bright light on the vital importance of schools as both institutions for learning and places for community building.
When this health crisis passes and some of the trauma has settled, educational institutions will look for insights to help them prepare for future pandemics or any other challenge the world of learning may face. To help, we collaborated with our healthcare experts to understand the tools they employ when designing spaces for healing that mitigate the spread of infection and boost overall well-being. We understand this is a complicated and nuanced issue, but hope that by sharing these best practices, we can help schools build resilience ahead of future outbreaks and other stressors.
Below are techniques architects can adapt from hospital design to help reduce the rate of infection, improve well-being, and help school communities stay healthy.
Strategic Material Selection, Design Solutions, and Cleaning Protocols
Like hospitals, schools can integrate materials, design strategies, and cleaning procedures that mitigate opportunities for pathogen growth, such as:
Decreasing Touch Through Data-Driven Automation
Advances in technology continue to increase data-driven automation in hospitals around the world. This trend creates more efficient, safer healthcare environments and many schools are incorporating technology to reduce frequently touched surfaces and maintain overall building health. Advances in automated processes, hands-free technology, and voice/device-activated solutions include the following:
Influencing Human Behavior
An individual’s health is affected by the environments in which they live, learn, work and play. The effects of the built environment on students are both direct, by influencing air quality, for example, and indirect, by influencing human behaviors. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the value of human behavior in controlling pandemics. Its Outbreak Communications Planning Guide proposes behavioral changes can reduce the spread by as much as 80%. Below are suggestions that can influence desired behaviors:
Recent events have made it clear that schools play a central role in the overall health of the community. The ideas above offer not only short-term solutions but can also help schools create a long-term vision that will build overall resilience. So much is still unknown, but whichever solution is necessary, it is apparent now more than ever that the actions we take today will help us prepare us for the future.
