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Future is Now: Health Aware Buildings


A recent article in Architecture and Design looks at how technology is adapting in buildings for a post-COVID future. From contactless designs to occupancy sensing to measurement of various health factors, technology is helping buildings reopen. The key considerations for designers to create safer spaces via technology are adaptability, monitoring and control through the collection of data and the use of sensors.


“With motorised doors and intelligent lighting and HVAC, it would be simple to create a completely contactless environment as people move through a building and use different spaces. Other technologies include camera sensors which are able to determine the number of people in a room or in defined areas of the room. These could be used to provide feedback when additional people enter a shop, move from one part of a building to another or to increase the ventilation to ensure fresh, clean air is provided in more confined spaces”.


To ensure the maximum utility of sensor technology, designers and architects must adapt the spaces to have holistic control systems. This means having a unique system managing data and controlling different factors on a single infrastructure, regardless of the different applications used.


“Ideally this should also be a system that can be adapted over time, or even pivoted quickly to provide a completely different type of functionality. Whilst we may not be able to see into the future, we can use lessons from the past to ensure the systems we install and design provide the highest level of adaptability and control”.


MKThink has been and is working with technology to make buildings more intelligent. We call it #spatialintelligence, where buildings and people can sense what’s happening and respond through user or building actions. We’ve even developed companies and products to service these needs (www.roundhouseone.com and www.theairangel.com) That said, not all buildings need to become supercomputers, but they should at least help their occupants use them better. To learn more, contact Signo Uddenberg at uddenberg@mkthink.com



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