Ricerc@Sapienza

Many of the devastating pandemics and outbreaks of last centuries have been caused by enveloped viruses. The recent pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19) has seriously endangered the global health system. In particular, hospitals have had to deal with a frequency in the emergency room and a request for beds for infectious diseases never faced in the last decades. It is well-known that hospitals are environments with a high infectious risk. Environmental control of indoor air and surfaces becomes an important means of limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

We present two methods for sizing the network for the transport of the air, from the air handling unit to the terminal units, for a dual duct system, where air flows in the “cold” duct at a temperature less than the ambient temperature, while air flows in the “hot” duct at a temperature higher than the ambient temperature. The methods, compared to the traditional design criteria, lead to a reduction of channel size and, therefore, of overall network size and cost as well.

Hospital outdoor spaces (HOS) play an important part of the Healthcare facilities, with a particular impact on the healing process, which is possible to evaluate by their cultural, social, ecological and economic characteristics and values (Ulrich 1984, 2001, Burnett, 1997; Marcus and Barnes, 1999). However, this paper argues that research studies refer to HOS only as residual spaces to support medical activities.