New Safety Protocols for the Workspace and the Residence

The Global Covid-19 Pandemic has brought in with it, new protocols, new safety measures, new patterns of behavioural changes and an array of unlearning and rethinking in terms of Design And Planning. Aludecor presents The Post Lockdown Roadmap to Design & Planning, where we delve deeper into the New Normal and its different facets. It is a Four Chapter Insight Series that brings in elevated perspectives of the Industry Leaders and their subjective views on Design & Planning in the Post Lockdown Situation.

Chapter III “New Safety Protocols for the Workspace and the Residence” unfolds with our eminent Panellists Mr. Deben Moza (Executive Director & Head of Project Management Services, Knight Frank (India) Pvt. Ltd.), Ar. Santha Gour (Principal Architect, Infinitti Studio) & Mr. Dharmesh Chevli (V.P. Design & Liaisoning, Parinee Realty Pvt. Ltd).

“How would you encourage and induce the behaviour of social distancing and hygiene to a population of 1.3 billion people with cities like Mumbai having a population density of 32000 people per sq km?”

Deben Moza: Once you go back to your workplace, you’ll have to face environmental challenges, as well as behavioural challenges. Environmental challenges are more to do with infrastructure, the cleaning protocols or social distancing. The most challenging part would be addressing behavioural challenges. We talk about maintaining six feet distance, and you’re travelling in Bombay local, you don’t even have a centimetre distance between two people.

Offices will see reduced density; staggered/Flexi work timings would be established. Right now, health & hygiene is the central focus of any organization. We sort of having to relook at the building designs in terms of getting outdoor air or treated fresh air in because that would address the spread of the virus. Time to bring back openable windows, the air conditioning temperatures will be 24 degrees and above. 

“How do we create spaces that will encourage the new normal behaviour?”

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Santha Gour: You cannot suddenly create new infrastructure, so once you join office, you have to make do with the workstations that are available currently. Getting new furniture will not be viable. For construction sites, where you have a lot of workers, the sanitization, the hygiene of those workers will also have to be maintained as they are working in close proximity. So behavioural changes in that population are also very important, even though they lack education. We have to see to it that if the pandemic strikes again, they don’t go back. Measures of creating temporary shelters and food arrangements need to be thought about. 

“What will be the future of residential design for safety in the new normal?”

Dharmesh Chevli: As far as residential is concerned, we need to start taking precautions right from the entrance of the lobby. We can provide sanitization space for parcels and online deliveries. There will also be small boxes as parcel lockers for each resident. Whatever parcels are sanitized can be kept in these lockers, and people can collect it whenever they want. Also, we need to think about bringing back the foyers to cut down on visitors. 

“Can you share some of your views on the sudden requirement of having a sanitization unit or cleaning process just at the entrance of the Corporate buildings?”

Santha Gour: In the Corporate buildings, there will be two kinds of sanitization, one for employees and the other for visitors. We can look at UV Sanitization Tunnel which takes care of the virus, then thermal scanning and separate meeting rooms for outside visitors. Then there can be policy decisions that after a meeting gets over, the entire room will be completely sanitized before the next meeting takes place. The idea of using RIFD kind of passes in phones to give floor direction to elevators can be looked at. So technology can play a big part in the reduction of unnecessary touching of surfaces.

“Work from Home – Can the home be your new office? – Share some insights on this new trend.”

Deben Moza: One size will not fit all; every business has different needs, different ways of working. A software engineer can do software design from home, but you can’t expect that from an architect or a project manager to sit at home and work remotely. So every business will have a certain portion of people who can operate from home. But the challenge is- it’s not a long term solution. Work from home comes with its own challenges. In places like Mumbai, a typical flat size would be around 600 or 900 sq. Ft. and there are four working people inside. There will be serious issues with internet connectivity and power shortages. Anything between 10 to 20% of the workforce can work from home.

Santha Gour: I honestly don’t see work from home happening for a long time. It’s very depressing sitting at home. There’s no social connect, its ages since I had my cup of chai with my colleagues and chit chat. I can discuss projects, but I don’t go to the office just for that. I go to connect with my colleagues also in the office. Technology can handle long distance physical meetings but not the human touch.

“Do you think technology and virtual platforms will rule the Real Estate Industry?”

Dharmesh Chevli: The use of a lot of software in terms of design, even in construction, will take over. We see now a lot of things are designed by software, so slowly and steadily, technology is entering the areas of designing, research and construction. Integration of various software related to the real estate will be soon in vogue.

“What is your take on 3D printing, artificial intelligence and VR?”

Dharmesh Chevli: We are not going to replace the physical inspection of the property with technology if the investors or consumers are investing such a large amount of money. People are currently using VR to shortlist properties.

Santha Gour: There has to be a human connect. To select a certain material for upholstery or something, I cannot do via technology. I cannot choose the fabric via video call. I need to go there, see, touch and feel and then decide.

Deben Moza: Technology will definitely go a long way and will be a support. I don’t think technology can replace human efforts. It will help us to bring more efficiency in the workplace and make things faster. It will work in parallel. Remote monitoring, offsite construction happening, and artificial intelligence usage will boom.

“What are your opinions on using local products/materials and its importance regarding the current scenario?”

Deben Moza: The fact that a lot of organizations have realized that dependency on a single producer will not work, COVID 19 has hit the business across the world. China was considered as a global production market. Even though now China’s coming back, it’s impacting other countries. But we must realize that the supply chains cannot be established overnight. We have seen government push for MSMEs, and the Make in India effort is going to continue for quite some time. So I think it is high time when we have to think local, you have to work locally. So we have to create supply chains to minimize the disruption. We have to enable and also help in sustainability. We’re talking about reducing the carbon footprint. I think we have to be self-sustaining in terms of production and managing things locally.”

“What’s your individual take on the usage of Copper as a natural anti-bacterial material with respect to hygiene and low virus contamination?”

Dharmesh Chevli: It has been seen that Copper can be used on a lot of hardware and on various other surfaces where the virus growth has to be contained. Compared to glass or any other material, Copper is better and has been found to be very effective in fighting the viruses and also some of the natural materials, like wood, where the growth of bacteria is substantially less than the hard surfaces like stainless steel glass. I have seen a lot of hospitals, or the operation theatre, they were already using this material, which was very effective in fighting the virus.

Santha Gour: Copper is an expensive material too. It gets oxidized, and you get the patina finish so fewer specific places we can use it. As a reintroduction of existing material, Copper will surely become a trend even if it’s a marketing gimmick. We will see a lot of materials with the claim of lesser growth of bacteria or reduction in the formation of bacteria. We are already seeing carpets with biocides in them which don’t allow the harvesting of bacteria in them for a long time. I think on the positive side Indians have shown a better immunity to the virus as our fatality rates are less because we don’t live in a highly sanitized environment. We need to draw a line as to what is excess of sanitization to keep most bacteria away, I think, just leaving it open and allowing immunity to take care of it is not such a bad idea.

Deben Moza: Copper will have limited use, as you can’t use Copper everywhere as it is expensive and there’s also maintenance for antimicrobial surfaces, or you will have issues. I think we need to look at material which is highly maintainable.

“This pandemic is delaying several ongoing projects, and the fact that many labours have migrated to their hometowns have caused a lot of worries – how do you see this issue?”

Deben Moza: Post lockdown 3.0, there’s a lot of reverse migration which has happened. A lot of people who’ve gone back, there’s a harvest season coming up, so they’ll take their own time coming back. The local labour is not that skilled as compared to migrant labour. They are more expensive. So, these are the challenges, which are I think are there. What we are trying to do here is to work within the challenging environment. We did have challenges as in inter-state movement. Those will remain, I don’t know for how long, so we have to recalibrate everything. We’ve already lost a few months. And to shut something and to restart something are two different things. It’s easy to shut the machine but to restart it again takes time. It will take us time to get back to the routine. Everything that has come back to a certain halt will take time to come back to normal. People will come back, but there is a fear of catching this disease. We are still working like nothing has come to a standstill. It has just slowed down and will take time to revive.

“How do you define the new sectors that will boost as an effect of this pandemic?”

Deben Moza: I think the sectors which are going to boost are warehousing and logistics, because everything, now, you would need to order online. And, again, this is because of the technology, because of the extensive use of data, we see a lot of data centres coming up. So, you know, there are certain sectors which are growing, which are in expansion. Coming to corporates, certain corporates are looking at expanding their footprint. As I said earlier, work from home cannot be an affordable solution for long. We’ll have offices, but how the design would change we don’t know. Would we go back to the cubicle or back to the cabin culture? It’s yet to be seen. Things would evolve. It’s work in progress.

“Do you think Corporates are overreacting?”

Deben Moza: Nobody is over-reacting. It’s an uncertain time as we have not seen this kind of situation ever. So people are actually reacting to what they get. It’s uncertainty, and people are very cautious.

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Santha Gour: Yes. And I don’t see the harm in an extra step for safety and hygiene. I mean, you may find somebody hyper about hygiene and sanitization. Finally, it’s to keep your employee safe, so what’s the harm?

“What about the HVAC system? Will there be a massive change in the check systems? And when do we start incorporating these changes?”

Dharmesh Chevli: For HVAC systems, almost all the solutions are very simple, like a replacement of the filters. Many air conditioning systems will have ducts which are installed with UV light, so anyway it acts as a disinfectant. Some are already incorporating bipolar ionization mechanism where the particle that charges positively and negatively for whichever viruses or microbes are in the air, positive and negative ions would be attracting those microbes and kill them. Considering the humidity, it has been considered that 40% to 60% of the humidity level is ideal for the air conditioning. But the easiest way out of all these will be to increase your ventilation.

“And now in the new normal, the space sharing and space-saving idea both will be redefined in all cities regarding creating new social distancing norms. Please share your thoughts.”

Deben Moza:  We cannot demolish cities to create a new social distancing norm. What has been built will be there, so it is about living within those constraints, observing social distance, maintaining hygiene protocols.

Santha Gour: Mumbai took an unprecedented turn in the number of positive cases, especially because of the number of people staying in the slums. ASRA was always concerned whether the government was trying to rehabilitate or rebuild the slums, which never happened for whatever reasons whether that was for political or any other agenda. So currently going forward, I think its high time we need to look at the way our slums are planned. The way 65 lakhs of Mumbai population are living. It’s not their fault that the positive numbers are increasing. If a hundred people are going to share a toilet, then obviously the positive numbers are going to increase. We need to look into that.

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Deben Moza: You will see a lot of residential spaces will have offices and retail to be together. You will have a self-contained environment. So people actually don’t have to be out. So you might see this spike in mixed-use development coming up with all the facility for you so that your commute time to your offices is reduced. We might see the emergence of satellite offices and smaller offices. If your main office falls under containment zones, you can use the nearby satellite office so that way you will not stay dependant on the main office. Maybe that would be a future.