The Necessity for Adaptable Buildings in The Time of Pandemics

One of the critical issues in the pandemics time is the availability of hospitals and healthcare centers to accommodate the large numbers of infected people or to use during the quarantine. In case of increasing the number of infected more than the capacity of theses building, here, the necessity for reuse other buildings for quarantine becomes critical. The dilemma that not all the buildings are suitable to respond to the potential reuse. An adaptable building can define as the building that has the ability to adapt well to another use and it has the flexibility to return back to its original function. And from a structural viewpoint; there is a known quality of the built structure, called resilience, that enables materials under pressure to resume their original state especially during or after an urgent situation like earthquakes or disasters.

The architects through history were sensitive to design buildings that fit the demanded function but not all of those buildings were adaptable to reuse for new functions especially in the time of pandemics or disasters. Many reasons behind inadaptability like the construction system are not suitable for changing use, Insufficient space for new functions, unavailability of logistical services in or around the building, unable to reach the building easily, the building is not secure and porous, the complexity of the design and the lack of clarity of the movement. The adaptable buildings can be characterized by key features like:

• Robustness represents the type of structural system, types of columns and the structural connections.

• Accessibility in the sense of the availability of roadways leading to the building

• Redundancy of components and services such as columns, IT system, HAVC, main water pipes into the building, and electric and/or power lines.

• Safety in the sense of the possibility of putting the building under control and monitoring of the entrances and exits.

• Regularity in design on the level of systematic distribution of spaces and the hierarchical composition which allows to re-functionalize the space regarding urgent demands.

The standardization of specifications of the design and the construction conditions of the public buildings according to the requirements of the reuse adaptability play a crucial role in organizing, programming and managing crises later.