A Review on Office Space Management Post Pandemic COVID-19
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11113/ijbes.v9.n2-3.1038Keywords:
Pandemic, exploratory study, wellness, officesAbstract
Literature studies reveal that mankind spends 90% of their life indoors. The current COVID 19, pandemic situation has capped the socialization among the people due to diverse reasons. This situation has questioned as well as challenged the age-old practices and standards that have been adopted in designing spaces for various functions. This study reinstates the need to maintain the health of the occupants especially in corporate offices. Achieving the users’ health and wellness that include some aspects of thermal comfort is challenging. The aim is to study, understand and achieve the key parameters that revolves around ‘health’ and ‘wellness’ of the occupants in corporate spaces that is expected to be occupied partially even during challenging situations. Exploratory methodology is adopted to identify and consolidate such parameters in this article. The data was collected from secondary resources such as ‘Well Building Standard’ by the International Well Building Institute, ‘Indian Green Building rating system’, ‘pandemic guidelines’ and ‘research articles’. It is observed that parameters such as ‘adequate and appropriate ventilation’, ‘indoor and native plants’ and ‘relative humidity’ need to be considered while facilitating the functioning of corporate spaces with minimum occupancy in situations which demand physical and social distancing. The role and the impacts of these parameters need to be explored in real time contexts.
References
Ahlawat, A., Wiedensohler, A., & Mishra, S. K. (2020). An Overview on the role of relative humidity in airborne transmission of SARS-CoV2 in indoor environments. Aerosol and Air Quality Research, 20(9): 1856-1861.
Al Horr, Y., Arif, M., Kaushik, A., Mazroei, A., Katafygiotou, M., & Elsarrag, E. (2016). Occupant productivity and office indoor environment quality: A review of the literature. Building And Environment, 105, 369-389.
Apte, M. G., & Apte, J. S. (2010). A pilot study of the effectiveness of indoor plants for removal of volatile organic compounds in indoor air in a seven storey office building (No. LBNL-3368E). Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.(LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States).
Arif, M., Katafygiotou, M., Mazroei, A., Kaushik, A., & Elsarrag, E. (2016). Impact of indoor environmental quality on occupant well-being and comfort: A review of the literature. International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment, 5(1): 1-11.
Beder, S. (2004). Consumerism: An historical perspective. Pacific Ecologist, 9(1): 42-48
Berg, M., & Hudson, P. (1992). Rehabilitating the industrial revolution 1. The Economic History Review, 45(1): 24-50.
Burridge, H. C., Bhagat, R. K., Stettler, M. E., Kumar, P., De Mel, I., Demis, P., Hart, A., Johnson, L. Y., King, M. F., Klymenko, O., McMillan, A., & Linden, P. F. (2021). The ventilation of buildings and other mitigating measures for COVID-19: a focus on wintertime. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 477(2247), 20200855.
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods, 891.
Dietz, L., Horve, P. F., Coil, D. A., Fretz, M., Eisen, J. A., & Van Den Wymelenberg, K. (2020). 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: built environment considerations to reduce transmission. Msysdietztems, 5(2)’: e00245-20.
Gray, D. E. (2013). Doing research in the real world. Sage. Guo, Z., AWMA Conference Indoor Environmental Quality: Problems, Research and Solutions, July 17-19, 2006, Durham, NC
Gubb, C., Blanusa, T., Griffiths, A., & Pfrang, C. (2018). Can houseplants improve indoor air quality by removing CO 2 and increasing relative humidity? Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 11(10): 1191-1201.
Horve, P. F., Lloyd, S., Mhuireach, G. A., Dietz, L., Fretz, M., MacCrone, G., Wymeleberg, K.V.D & Ishaq, S. L. (2020). Building upon current knowledge and techniques of indoor microbiology to construct the next era of theory into microorganisms, health, and the built environment. Journal Of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, 30(2): 219-235.
Inbathamizh, L. (2020). Indoor medicinal plants: Beneficial biocatalysts for air filtration and bioremediation–A review. International Journal of Green Pharmacy (IJGP), 14(02).
Kothari, C. R. (2004). Research methodology: Methods and techniques. New Age International. Lee, J. H. (2006). System of phyto-filter for removing indoor air pollutants. Interior Landscape, 8: 9-16.
Makkar, Y., Deepshika, (2014). Green Retrofit – Building the future, ICFILD Conference presentation.
Meattle, K. (2009). how to grow your own fresh air. TED.
Morawska, L., Tang, J.W., Bahnfleth, W., Bluyssen, P.M., Boerstra, A., Buonanno, G., Cao, J., Dancer, S., Floto, A., Franchimon, F. and Haworth, C., (2020). How can airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors be minimised?. Environment international, 142: 105832.
Petermans, A., & Pohlmeyer, A. E. (2014). Design for subjective well-being in interior architecture. In Proceedings of the Annual Architectural Research Symposium in Finland, 206-218
Research and Development (MD-56), Air and Radiation (6609J), Environmental Protection Agency, United States, February 1991.
Shah, S.A.A.S., (2017). Physical, mental, and spiritual health: Triad of happiness and tranquility. Keynote address presented at "International Conference of Health Psychology: Issues and Challenges. Department of Psychology. GC University Lahore, Pakistan (26-28 April, 2017).
Swedberg, R. (2018). On the uses of exploratory research and exploratory. Producing Knowledge. Forthcoming.
Van Dijken. F, Boerstra. A (2021) Implications of COVID-19 pandemic for application of natural ventilation, Rehva Journal Federation of European Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Associations, 58 – 63
Wahjutami, E. L., Antariksa, A., Nugroho, A. M., & Leksnono, A. S. (2016). Decrease of Building’s Humidity with Epiphyte and Xerophyte. Journal of Islamic Architecture, 3(4): 183-188.
Wolverton, B. C., Johnson, A., & Bounds, K. (1997). Interior landscape plants for indoor air pollution abatement.
World Health Organization (2021), Preventing and mitigating COVID 19 at work
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright of articles that appear in International Journal of Built Environment and Sustainability belongs exclusively to Penerbit Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Penerbit UTM Press). This copyright covers the rights to reproduce the article, including reprints, electronic reproductions or any other reproductions of similar nature.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- This Journal applies Creative Commons Licenses of CC-BY-NC-SA
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).