Operations

Back to a New Reality: How to Adapt Your Recreation Center in a Post-COVID-19 Era

Craig Bouck, AIA, LEED AP, and Michael ‘Mick’ Massey, RLA

We all have been working toward preparing and reopening our recreation centers post shutdown. Now it is important to step back and consider long-term implications and items that will influence and change the way we think about planning and design for recreation centers from here on out. To accomplish this, we must focus on adaptions to physical spaces, building systems and operations that will increase our versatility and adaptability in our new normal.

Physical Spaces

As we return to our facilities, it is important to keep in mind that perception is reality, meaning if someone does not feel safe going into their recreation center, they won’t go. Knowing this, we need to build trust and a sense of confidence that we are serious about protecting everyone’s health, safety and welfare.

To help accomplish this, building layouts must change to focus more on adaptability. Here are a few short-term actions that can progress into long-term modifications worth considering: • Entry/Exit Strategies – If you can provide one way in and one way out, eliminating traffic through the same doorway, it makes people feel a lot better.

Not only is it a more efficient way to transition classes, but also it helps people feel like they’re doing a good job maintaining physical distancing.

• Larger Entries, Circulation and

Storage Spaces – One of the keys to adapting interior spaces during

COVID-19 has been enabling guests to physically distance. Limitations to success have been pinch points at entries, tight corridors and small spaces for guests to gather before and after programs.

Historically, architects and designers have tried to reduce or limit non-programable square footage, but they now know that without adequate circulation space, they cannot move people throughout recreation buildings or facilities with adequate safety buffers. Likewise, adaptable storage space enables rooms to become more flexible, accommodating extra furniture and equipment when greater guest separation is required.

©2018 JAMES RAY SPAHN WWW.JAMESRAYSPAHN.COM Avoid potential future pinch points by planning for adequate square footage in your entryways, lobbies and circulation spaces during the design phase.

Systems

Infrastructure will be one of the major factors creating versatility for park and recreation agencies in the future. • Air Zoning – Managing airborne pathogens has forced park and recreation professionals to rethink airflow throughout recreation centers. One promising strategy is to increase the number of air zones within the building. Rather than having large areas with a single air exchange system, engineers are breaking a space into smaller air zones that can clean the air more frequently and effectively. • Air Filtration – We predict that we are going to see more and more high-quality air filtration options and increased affordability. However, increased filtration requires more pressure and more power from heating and cooling systems, and so making this improvement will require careful evaluation. • Humidity Control – Humidity controls may need to be modified.

Some pathogens, like viruses, do well in a dry environment, while others, such as mold and spores, thrive in humid environments. Fif-