Learning from lockdown: Getting a (door) handle on the spread of disease

冠状病毒似乎开始影响日常生活的时间比我们大多数人预期的要长得多。准确预测它将如何改变实践生活和工作流程似乎是愚蠢的，但政治家们已经在谈论需要在可预见的未来实施社交距离和公共卫生措施。在伦敦地铁上戴口罩可能很快就会像在北京雾霾最严重的日子里一样成为一种必备的礼节，有机玻璃屏幕可能会像货架一样成为商店装饰的标准组成部分。

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.

铜的抗真菌和抗菌特性对你来说可能不是什么新鲜事。至少从古埃及时代开始，它就被用来作为饮酒器，并被喷洒在伤口上以加速愈合。此外，由于铜杀死病毒的方式，病毒不太可能变异成铜抗性。

Taking into account the reduced costs of treatment, the payback time for installing copper fittings in hospitals is just two months

然而，在大家都急于指定黄铜门家具之前，莱斯特大学的一项研究发现，人们手汗中的盐分会腐蚀黄铜物品中的铜，在表面形成一层氧化层，可以抑制铜的抗菌作用。他们建议，在交通拥挤的地区，维护制度是必要的，以保持手柄“工作”，或铜合金缓蚀剂应使用。然而，这项研究得出的结论是，“任何需要防止细菌传播的地方，如公共建筑、学校和医院，都应该考虑在日常用品中使用铜合金，以帮助避免疾病的传播。”

Of course copper alloys are more expensive than stainless steel, but a study by the University of York health economics consortium showed that, taking into account the reduced costs of shorter patient stay and treatment, the payback time for installing copper fittings into hospitals is just two months. Arguments have also been made for copper hospital beds that harbour 95% fewer bacteria than conventional hospital beds.

PLP are clearly aware of this research as their Francis Crick Institute near St Pancras in London has copper alloy door furniture installed throughout. For those interested in exploring this further several major ironmongery manufacturers have a range of copper alloy door furniture available on their websites, so to include this in specification is not as complex a task as it might appear.

This is, of course, a rather in-depth consideration of just one rather simple example of how architects might engage with inhibiting disease spread. However, if controlling the spread of highly contagious diseases becomes a key consideration of life post-lockdown, architects have a duty to be aware of the research and to engage with academia both architectural and medical. Given that each of us spends roughly twice as long at university as the standard bachelor’s degree student, engaging with academic findings is certainly not beyond our abilities.