How we occupy and move through spaces have been altered by our need to adapt our lives to controlling the spread of COVID-19. It’s now routine to drop-off and pick-up your pooch through the window of your car while waiting in the veterinary hospital’s parking lot. We suspect that many shelters have already adapted operations by, for example, moving some adoption processes on-line, limiting how many potential adopters can be in the lobby at one time, or making your people-traffic go in one direction with separate entrance and exit doors and floor-mapping flow through animal housing.
There are several design techniques that were already prevalent in the animal sheltering world that others now realize will help make all buildings safer to use and occupy during our time of COVID-19 and afterward. Those in the animal care community already know that air quality, flow and filtration help control the spread of airborne pathogens. Compartmentalizing animal housing into smaller spaces makes it easier to contain a disease outbreak and sanitize a space more rapidly. Automatic door openers make it easier to bring crated and non-crated animals through the doorway and provide a touchless entry.