The pandemic is reinforcing evolving trends in office design that have been under consideration for some time – wellbeing, improved ventilation systems and general product improvement/evolution. This is being further accelerated more recently by the environmental and sustainability agenda.

The appropriate level of response will be subject to consideration by design teams, advisors, funders, occupiers and developers, who will need to decide which design measures are required to make their buildings more resilient to COVID-19 or similar future pandemics, and to help suppress the transmission of viruses.

The scale of potential costs reinforces the need to carefully consider future design and specification changes against value. Occupiers may consider buildings differently in the future, and buildings that are seen as not on-point with the market expectation could be less appealing. Better buildings are, more often than not, quicker to let and more attractive to informed tenants. In the post pandemic world developers and their design teams need to work closely to make the right decisions and apply the solutions efficiently and effectively to drive greater value return and/or market differentiation.