Pandemic Predicament: Church Design – Part 3 of 5
The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined daily life. From working environments to required face coverings to food delivery to entertainment, the effects and aftermath of social distancing may be here to stay for a very long time. These are unchartered waters and architecturally speaking, will no doubt have an impact on the design of future gathering spaces. Therefore, it is incumbent on the architectural community to look for ways to not only mitigate virus transmission, but to design safer gathering spaces.
In this blog post series, we’ll look at several key areas within the church campus where design can have a major impact on the occupants’ safety and protection from transmitting and/or contracting COVID-19 or other viruses.
As churches begin to reopen, federal, state, city and county health and safety guidelines are in place to help prevent new cases of COVID-19. But beyond best-practices of hand sanitizer stations, daily deep cleaning, and seating people six feet apart, what else is worth considering in terms of indoor spaces.
Considerations for the Kids & Student Space:
• Check-in & Check-out use touchless or voice automated systems or even a feature that links to parents’ cell phone.
• Add floor decals or colored carpet tiles to space parents/kids for social distancing.
• Stagger classroom furniture, tables should face the same direction in an effort to reduce virus transmission risks.
• Implement portable barriers to divide classrooms for smaller groups.
• Post COVID-19 transmission signage in prominent locations, including hand sanitizing stations, disinfecting wipes, and room cleaning supplies.
• Consider reducing room occupant load using a 6’x6’ metric, meaning divide the useable room area by 36 to get the maximum occupant load.
• If the church operates a parent’s day-out or daycare, then consider drop-off & pick-up from outside using cell phones and car license information, this limits number of people inside the church building & around each other.
Our next blog post will consider indoor design changes of worship and support areas for church design during this pandemic predicament!