< PreviousSpecial Report commercialinteriordesign.com May 2020 32 SPECIAL REPORTSpecial Report 33 May 2020 commercialinteriordesign.com Pull Push open door from inside open door from outside doordoorooSpecial Report commercialinteriordesign.com May 2020 36 have a signi cant impact on the ow and functionality of the space. Similarly, when looking at some of our high-traf c of ce projects, including VFS Global visa application centres, apart from a heavy footfall, the security is very stringent. Streamlining the process and improving ef ciency in circulation is the prime objective. "The technology advances are now allowing spaces to be more conducive and exible to accommodate different needs. It is changing the design industry in many unexpected ways. "Advances in technology are being made at such a quick pace that it's just about impossible to keep up. It seems as though as soon as you imagine something – which may not even be invented yet – someone in the world is already working out a way to make it possible. These changes are not isolated to one particular industry, and they are fundamentally shifting the way we, as designers and humans, interact with our surroundings. As knowledge work becomes more collaborative, many of ce spaces are evolving to become mostly shared spaces versus individually assigned work settings, which brings to light the need to minimise sharing sickness and different virus outbreaks. "Today with the scare of virus attacks looming over our heads, we are forced to rethink how one needs to include these instances in design. Are we looking to include a healthcare initiative into the basic design of all public and high-traf cs spaces? Antibacterial ceramics that keep your bathroom more hygienic, mouldable metals that can be set and unset, and fabrics that actively cool the air around them as well as intelligent use of microbial surfaces are inevitably becoming topics of the present, not the future. "And to me personally, I would like to see that bio-inspired design becomes the new trend, the latest buzz and the next big thing for all of us working in different design elds." Mohamed Rezk is commercial manager at MB Consultancy, a leading architecture and engineering service provider that specialises in research driven innovation. He says: "The design and construction of healthcare buildings require a specialist design and organisation due to the healthcare and patient priorities that will inhabit the space. The understanding of quality in healthcare buildings has changed over time, while in the beginning, the architecture was taken in the same sense as structural security, aesthetics, and functional ef ciency; afterward, physical and psychological needs played a crucial part in the design. "Nowadays, when healthcare Next >