10B — April 24 - May 14, 2020 — Services & Suppliers — Owners, Developers & Managers — M id A tlantic Real Estate Journal
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S ervices & S uppliers
By John W. Lister, AIA, LEED AP, GGP, JL Architects Best practices for returning to work after COVID-19
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he s e a r e unp r e c - edented and uncer- tain times. Other than
workspace.
ees healthy as they also help remove allergens and mold from the air. It can be tricky to know where to place air purifiers in a space; connect with your de- sign team to get recommenda- tions on the best installations based on workspace occupancy. Keep your hands to yourself and look for touchless solutions Look for ways to minimize the amount of contact your employees have with each other and shared objects. While they are probably not shar- ing keyboards and chairs, the whole office is using the same doorknobs and light switches.
Whenever possible, automate the doors, lights, and fixtures that people tend to touch. That could mean installing more automatic or doubling- acting doors, looking into solar- powered faucets, hand dryers, and auto-flush toilets, and installing occupancy sensors for your lights. Identify the handles that get the most traf- fic and think about ways to replace them with “hands-off” technology. These are some simple upgrades that could take place in a day or two, when construction is allowed to work in your area. On a surface-level: cover it up, wash it off
Not only do great work- spaces make employees hap- pier and more productive, workspaces can be designed to keep them physically healthy. While reconfiguring an office space might not be in the bud- get, for a cheaper and easier implementation, look for hard coverings that can be cleaned with antibacterial solutions. This means ceramic tile, lino- leum, washable or antibacte- rial wall coverings, chair and sofa covers, etc. All those hard surfaces can easily turn a work space to looking or sounding like an elementary school cafeteria. Work with a design team to adapt the acoustics and shop for quality materials. Technol- ogy is rapidly changing the way we interface with each other, and the spaces we occupy are shifting right along with it, from retail to hotelling work- spaces. JL Architects is proud of our dedicated partnerships across the industry; moving past this crisis requires resilience and collaboration and we look for- ward to tackling it together. JL Architects is a full-service ar- chitecture firm serving clients since 1988. Our architecture, design, and engineering teams specialize in commercial, re- tail, industrial, multi-family, food and beverage/restaurant, healthcare, sustainable design, and green building certifica- tion services across the United States. JohnW. Lister, AIA, LEED AP, Green Globes Profes - sional is founding principal at JL Architects. DE Engineering Society presents Williams with 2020 Engineer of the Year award NEWARK, DE — Land- mark Science & Engineer- ing president Ted C. Wil- liams was named the 2020 Delaware Engineer of the Year. The Delaware Engineer- ing Society presented himwith this distinguished award at their annual Engineers Week Banquet. Ted Williams, PE, FACEC, ExecEng, has comprehensive experience from working 44 years in civil engineering, site design, and project manage- ment on a wide variety of land development, transportation and construction projects.
Invest in a personal clean air initiative It’s probably time to get HVAC ducts cleaned. While hospitals and medical care centers are using a costly method of rapidly heating and cooling air to keep the virus from circulating, there is a simpler (and greener) ap- proach: invest in a HEPA air filter. Depending on how large a workspace is, that could mean a single air purifier tower or a larger, permanent instal- lation. While these can get expensive, it’s a long-term investment to keep employ-
k e e p i n g a w o r k p l a c e stocked with the sanitiz- i ng e s s en - tials, it can be difficult to know how to protect em- ployees. As
John W. Lister
we hope to ease back into nor- malcy, office spaces can be the most dangerous and infectious places for working Americans. To protect your employees and tenants, we recommend making some changes to your
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