Only 18 months ago, everyone around the globe had their life upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost immediately, architects and designers began to speculate on how they could design for a better world that would be flexible, functional, and healthy. While the pandemic is far from over, with many scientific advancements and public health policies still needed to truly allow us to live out our “new normal”, perhaps its time to reflect on our predictions and examine what aspects of the pandemic were short-term reactions, and which aspects of life might be permanently reflected in how we think about the built environment.
At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a belief that the social distancing measures and masking mandates that became a part of our lives almost overnight would become habits that we would adopt for the next decade. We needed to quickly rethink how to make people comfortable when returning to the office, as workers funneled into meeting rooms. We needed to plan for the reuse and reinvention of outdoor spaces. And we needed to design our homes to incorporate outdoor spaces and home offices. But has this held true in how architects are designing for the long term?
HOUSING
