Guidelines for Improving Interior Environments of Residential Building for Healthcare Workers to Increase Air Distribution by Natural Ventilation

Abstract

At present, most of residential buildings for healthcare workers that constructed in the past
when the anti-airborne diseases concept wasn’t concerned enough. Therefore, this research aims
to study the way to improve the design for these residential buildings with regard to the construction
drawings No. 3852 and No. 5462 issued by the Design and Construction Division, Department of
Health Service Support, Ministry of Public Health to obtain a solution to enhance the health,
safety, and welfare of healthcare workers. All of the construction drawings were selected from the
target area, specifically from shared accommodations that possessed a high risk of contracting the
virus. The study methodology included revision of health-related documents from secondary
sources, a compilation of architectural drawings, a field survey involving space usage inside the
residential units, and the wind flow distribution that have been obtained during a simulation on a
scale model of a building to determine the relative computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The results
revealed that healthcare workers typically shared common areas at the same time, which raises
the risk of exposure to the virus. The results of the ventilation test after changing the environment
in the room showed that the ventilation in the common area could be increased better. Hence,
the effective conceptual design that will increase ventilation to minimize the spread of the airborne
diseases is to consider the sequence of functional spaces, the layout of the interior environment
and space allocation and the alteration of building’s openings.