Influence of poor Architectural design of old government public buildings on Coronavirus spreading risks in Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Instructor- Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, El.Sharkia, Egypt

Abstract

During the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, field observations showed that several government administrative buildings in old Egyptian cities had design flaws that made them more likely to spread airborne viruses like the COVID-19 virus.
The deficiencies in the architectural design of the administrative buildings led to an intersection of the main movement paths between users, as well as a lack of reception space to guide visitors and several other problems that consequently led to severe crowding inside those buildings, which certainly harms the healthy performance of these buildings.
Our governmental buildings are not built with disease prevention in mind. With the development of the health and epidemiological situation, scientists, researchers, engineers, innovators, and architects united in developing adaptive reuse solutions to deal with the risks of the spread of the virus in already existing buildings. Architects used these ideas to devise ways to deal with the epidemic, such as new designs or ways to make existing buildings healthier by using architectural ideas and new technologies. In Egypt, governmental buildings are often placed in areas that need to be commensurate with the population density to whom those buildings provide government service; Old government buildings often have poor designs due to a lack of architectural design.

Keywords