Urban Land Magazine
By: Trish Riggs
April 3rd, 2020

The role of the built environment in slowing the spread of COVID-19 and helping people cope with the pandemic and its aftermath was discussed by healthy building experts convened by ULI for a March 31 webinar on the impacts of the coronavirus. The event, “Confronting COVID-19: Healthy Buildings, Optimizing Mental Health,” was the second in a series of webinars offered by ULI’s Building Healthy Places Initiative to explore how various aspects of the real estate industry are being affected by the virus and the industry’s response.

The webinar is free to access at ULI Knowledge Finder.

Webinar panelist Joseph G. Allen, assistant professor at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, noted that society, in general, appears to have reached the acceptance phase of the crisis, which he said is the point at which people feel empowered to combat it. “We are all in a position to do something, and we have to bring buildings into this fight. This is an all-in moment like we have never seen. We need everyone in on this, working to solve this challenge,” he said. (Allen has written several commentaries on COVID-19 as well as publications on healthy buildings, which are available at forhealth.org.)

Allen listed several global “megachanges” that will alter how people relate to the built environment and how buildings will be operated, including… click here to continue reading