Improving Room Carrying Capacity within Built Environments in the Context of COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic that has struck the world since March 2019 has established an unusual modus operandi for all of us. During this transient situation, some of the activities have been severely altered, especially those which are performed in indoor spaces such as classrooms, restaurants, or libraries. As physical distance is mandatory in most countries, the capacity of these places has been severely reduced, causing unsustainable economic and logistical issues. This work aims to analyze the possible ways of distributing seats in symmetrical spaces for different uses and room sizes. For that purpose, the classical seat arrangement in rows and columns is compared with an equilateral triangle-based seat pattern, which is proposed as a better solution in most cases. Results show that a greater number of seats is achieved in most situations using the proposed patterns, with mean increases of 13% and peaks from 25% to 50% in some specific circumstances. A discussion about an optimized layout, shape and size of the furniture used in multiple seat tables is included. The outcome shall generate a positive impact on schools, colleges, restaurants, libraries, and similar built environments where seating capacity is crucial.