For good reason, 2020 has sparked a renewed commitment to hand washing and surface sanitization. The pandemic has driven the adoption of these practices across the globe.
As communities, institutions, and employers await a COVID-19 vaccine and continue to attempt to mitigate the spread of the illness, what permanent design changes will be required of the built environment? What will offices, hospitals, airports, malls, or multifamily developments look like in one year? Five years? Ten?
Reimagining High-Touch Surfaces
COVID-19 (like many other viruses and diseases) can be spread via touching a contaminated surface and then touching one’s face, eyes, or mouth—or transferring it to the next thing that is touched.
Society is on high alert post-COVID, and designing for a safer and cleaner future now is imperative to help mitigate the effects of any future outbreak. While sanitization remains key, designers are taking a closer look at the materials specified for high-touch surfaces and other building components.
It Starts With the Entrance
Often, the very first surfaces touched in commercial, institutional, and healthcare facilities are doors, and the doorknobs, handles, or levers that open them. So how can industry professionals specify solutions for entrances that significantly reduce, or in some cases eliminate, the spread of germs?
Materials made of copper and its alloys, bronze and brass, have historically been known to slow or stifle the growth of bacteria and viruses. As it relates specifically to the novel coronavirus, according to a study conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the virus remains active on plastic and stainless-steel surfaces for two to three days, on cardboard for one day, and on copper for just four hours.
Companies like Ellison Bronze have been manufacturing doors from bronze (a copper alloy) for nearly a century, and while big bronze doors have been an aesthetic staple in cities such as Chicago and New York City for decades, these same doors are now being called upon for their germ-fighting value in the age of the pandemic.
Entryway doors with bronze handles and frames are one way to combat the spread of germs in busy buildings. Given that viruses or bacteria may not die immediately, proper sanitization and adherence to safety protocols is still necessary. However, periods of slow foot traffic and overnight hours give these metals the appropriate amount of time to slow the growth of, break down, and eliminate infectious microbes.
Outside In
Moving forward, the new normal will give rise to product innovations and design practices that will have a substantial impact on our interaction with the built environment.
Will open-office environments become a thing of the past? Will enclosed spaces that limit the number of people who can gather become more attractive? How will this impact the design of a hotel, a hospital, a school, or corporate environments?
This paradigm will continue to evolve, and protecting a building and its inhabitants certainly goes well beyond the door. But it’s important to have a first line of defense.
Ellison Bronze Inc. invented the balanced door in 1927. Today, Ellison leads the industry by providing custom marquee doors to the world’s most famous addresses. Made with the highest quality materials and unparalleled craftsmanship, Ellison doors are the standard to which all other commercial entry doors are compared worldwide.
