Air Shield: Pandemic Response for Enhanced Indoor Air Quality in the Workplace

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a design team considered how to maintain the safety of workers in office environments with a product that could have useful life after the threat of the pandemic subsided. Due to high real estate costs and desire for collaboration, dense open offices will continue to be a reality. The goal was for workers to remain visibly connected while maintaining safety in existing workplace layouts. Considering the office environment holistically, the team developed a solution that respected air quality in interior environments. The solution was developed early in the pandemic, prior to a full understanding of the virus and how it spreads. The process resulted in a workstation and fan attachment system to contain viral spread and purify the air, effectively responding to the obscured risk. In this article we describe the design process and critique of early, hasty, responses which were framed by material and technical solutions and compare our ideas to worker desires through ex post facto surveys sent to workers after vaccine availability and offices began to reopen. Surveys showed a general desire for the product and indicate continued concern for workplace safety. © Common Ground Research Networks, Barbara Young, Jung Joo Sohn, Some Rights Reserved (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).