Nobody's travelling today. Nobody's booking hotels today. Today everything has changed, and we still do not know when we will be able to return to normal. Most probably never, but we will conquer a "new normality" made of changes that will become part of our everyday life.
Just as a few years ago, when you decided to become an architect, you had to choose the path to become "green", today it is unthinkable not to be. Sustainable design that involves the entire man-environmental ecosystem is, in fact, fundamental and is now to be considered the only possible way to build the world around us. Following this reasoning, what for us today will be a novelty to be introduced and that is the concept of health to face this pandemic situation, in some time will become law in the design and renovation of buildings.
So, when will we be able to travel again, what will the accommodation facilities that will welcome us be like? Will existing hotels be able to evolve and new buildings to become the first healthy hotels without turning into hospitals?
The truth is that nobody knows yet, and there are many doubts. Mainly what many people think is that if a vaccine were found, a real revolution would not be necessary, but since no one can make predictions in the medical field, you can not waste time based on a hypothesis.
Hotels, especially luxury hotels, take years to imagine, design and build, and during this time, people's habits change as well as fashions and the whole field of materials and digital technologies. So making a decision today for a world of the future during a pandemic is not easy.
Another important consideration to make is that most likely the Coronavirus will not last long compared to the psychological "suspicion" that this condition has insinuated in the mind of each of us. The fear of others and environments other than one's own home will remain for a long time, and it is, therefore, necessary to find solutions that can already create the conditions to make people feel safe.
However, the risk of turning hotels into hospitals is very high if you want to follow all the directives and regulations to create healthy spaces. For this reason, it will be essential that the world of hoteliers constantly dialogue with architects, especially those who specialise in sustainable architecture. These architects already have at the base of their approach to the profession extreme attention to the health of man and the environment that surrounds them.
It will, therefore, be necessary that the space in the hotels is also designed with the collaboration of new technologies and innovative materials. An interesting example will be the integration of "no-touch" technology that uses voice recognition to perform a series of actions and the detection of body temperature and other possible parameters thanks to "health detectors" installed at all building entrances.
In the architectural field, it will be essential that design, supply and construction industries that have invested in new materials and technologies aimed at maintaining the healthiness of the environment are chosen. Many surfaces will be self-cleaning and able to react to pollutants such as viruses, preventing them from attacking and even destroying them. All air and water supply systems will be equipped with filtering and purifying systems. The goal will be to create a healthy environment by camouflaging all this new technology to ensure a memorable experience for guests and make them feel safe as if they were in their own home.
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