Coronavirus is beginning to look like it will impact daily life for much longer than most of us could have anticipated. It seems silly to prophesy exactly how it will change practice life and work flows, but politicians are already talking about needing to implement social distancing and public health measures for the foreseeable future. Face masks may soon become as de-rigueur on London tube trains as in Beijing on its smoggiest days, and plexiglass screens may become as standard a part of shop fit-outs as the shelving.

Architecture, especially that of public buildings unquestionably has a duty to consider its role in helping to inhibit the spread of contagious diseases – especially as we are now so painfully aware of the costs to life, society and the economy that can result.

To take a more specific example, I recently read an interesting article about a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examining the durability of covid-19 on surfaces and in the air. It tested the durability of covid-19 on four surfaces – copper, cardboard, plastic and stainless steel; finding that all detectable covid-19 was gone after four hours on copper, within 24 hours on cardboard and up to three days on plastic and stainless steel. This result followed patterns observed in studies for other contagious viruses such as Sars and Mers.

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