The COVID-19 pandemic has confronted building owners with operational challenges that few, if any, buildings have ever experienced since the Spanish Flu pandemic a hundred years ago. New safety rules and regulations now imposed from the ashes of this crisis have raised questions about updating old guidelines, laws, codes, standards, and product tests to meet the challenge in the interest of public safety.

As part of HMC’s ongoing research effort to better understand the longterm effects of COVID-19 and develop solutions for civic spaces, we spoke with various representatives from different public agencies including police, fire, sheriff, city and country administrators, and consultants from public safety and engineering companies to gain insight and understanding of COVID-19’s impact on future facility operation and design.

HMC is committed to sharing our findings with the industry in a series of white papers that focus on five main areas of Technology, Adaptability and Flexibility, Regulatory/Budgetary/Institutional Impacts, Space Needs Restructuring, and Impact to Wellness/Mental Health. In this paper, we cover our findings on the Regulatory/Budgetary/Institutional changes on our civic built environments.