Pandemic Predicament: Church Design – Part 4 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.
RevCity, Lawrence, KS Photo Credit: Emmalee Schaumburg
Considerations for the Worship Space:
• Allow as many doors as possible for entry and exit in order to spread people out.
• Post COVID-19 transmission signage in prominent locations, including hand sanitizing stations.
• Use overhead signs to direct people in one-way traffic patterns in lieu of two-way.
• Adjust the seating capacity to accommodate social distancing. Typically, this means to seat every other row and maintain 3 empty seats between each family unit.
• Allow more time for people to enter the worship space and to slowly exit, maintaining 6’ distance between family units. This may mean an adjustment to worship times.
• Offer online registration for services in order to pre-plan attendance & other live stream rooms that may be needed to accommodate the occupancy of people wanting to attend.
• Consider other venues, either off-site or multi-site, with smaller seat counts.
Our next blog post will consider indoor design changes of office and administrative areas for church design during this pandemic predicament!