**5. Analysis and discussion**

By adopting the qualitative descriptive method through exploring, identifying, and understanding the broad collective challenges to combat COVID-19 and other similar pandemics, it appears that there is an evident significant relationship between the application and the implementation within the majority of the literature reviewed from, on the one hand, covering the following: initiative strategies [2, 6, 37]; guidelines [25, 46]; criteria [29, 30]; lessons learned [3, 36]; proposals concerning architecture [28], building components [2, 6, 37, 52], biophilic design [26–28], urbanization [13], environment [39, 43], and sustainability [9, 44]; and minimizing the spread of COVID-19 and combating the pandemic, on the other hand. This significant relationship leads to a strong belief that on these bases, valid guidelines covering most of these areas can be set up in a systematic way for various uses and can be easily referred to by concerned university students and other professionals, in addition to other standard manuals and guideline references published before the COVID-19 pandemic and/or updated later.

Furthermore, by adopting the descriptive qualitative approach, the authors examined through a practitioner's lens of open-ended inquiry on key titles, expressions, and terminologies that they observed frequently in their literature review, such as: healthengaged architecture and urbanism solutions [31]; virus transmission and urban density [53–55]; leveraging buildings to mitigate viral transmission [56]; use of balconies in apartments during COVID-19 pandemic [57]; critical review of biophilic design in architecture and its contributions to health, well-being, and sustainability [26]; review of the rationale and outcomes of biophilic architecture [32]; participation of biophilic design in the design of the post-pandemic living space [58]; artificial intelligence and COVID-19 [33]; behavioral architecture approach to the concept of housing for the face of the pandemic [59]; design during a pandemic and application of the WELL building standard [60]; COVID-19 and construction: early lessons for a new normal

[16]; urban design attributes and resilience: COVID-19 evidence from New York City [61]; emergency architecture: modular construction of healthcare facilities as a response to pandemic outbreak [62]; rethinking building design during COVID-19: spacing, foot traffic, and high-touch surfaces, which are common issues to safely reopening workplaces, schools, and government buildings in the COVID-19 environment [6, 37]; strategies for safer buildings [2, 37]; schools and educational buildings [63–67]; senior living communities [68]; retail stores [69]; polling places [70]; risk management plan for buildings [6]; and core recommendations for reducing airborne infectious aerosol exposure [71, 72].

These reviewed detailed guidelines, solutions, and other related items are identified, sorted out, categorized, classified, and finally summarized in an organized set of architectural and building engineering guidelines and recommendations for a healthy building and environment that ensure health and safety to occupants, residents, and users, not only in the Kingdom of Bahrain but also in other regions all over the world.

The co-authors observed that a number of reviewed architecture design manuals have been recently updated after COVID-19 to include items concerning combating and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic either directly or indirectly [42, 73–75].

The reviewed literature revealed the possibility that architects and the built environment engineers and concerned professionals can create healthy buildings and improve the environment to minimize and eliminate the risk of pandemics by making smart choices and decisions about the surfaces, components, systems, and other related items that are to be chosen, detailed, and included in their projects.
