Opinion

The shape of things to come: architecture after the virus

Questions are being posed within the field of architecture these days, on what global impact Covid-19 is likely to have on our work and home lives. In many societies around the world, people are being subjected to socially distanced self-isolation, shops are shuttered, offices are largely abandoned and urban centres have been reduced to ghost towns. Will pavements be widened so we can keep our distance? Will we no longer want to live so densely packed together, working in open-plan offices and cramming into lifts? Will homes have to adapt to accommodate work spaces?

From antibacterial brass doorknobs to broad, well-ventilated boulevards, our cities and buildings have always been shaped by disease. Since ancient Greek times, streets were paved with flagstones largely to seal in what was widely thought to be poisonous vapours and diseases emanating from the earth. The cholera epidemic in 19th-century Britain influenced the modern street grid with the introduction of sewage systems that required the roads above them to be wider and straighter. The bubonic plague outbreak in 1855 changed the design of everything, from drain pipes to door thresholds and building foundations, in the war to eradicate rats.

And the wipe-clean aesthetic of modernism was partly a result of tuberculosis, with light-flooded sanatoriums inspiring an era of white painted rooms, hygienic tiled bathrooms and the ubiquitous mid-cen- tury recliner chair. Form has always followed fear of infection just as much as function.

Now, design agencies are turning their creative energies to imagining ways buildings could help fight future epidemics, spanning everything from the layout of public spaces to surface coatings.

In contrast to the boom of multiple companies sharing the same office space and the ideal of co-working and social interaction, these days, proximity does not seem so appealing. Are companies really going to continue putting their entire team in one place, mingling with other businesses? Likewise, is this the death-knell for the concept of co-living spaces, where kitchen-dining-living room areas are shared between several tenants?

Wider corridors, more partitions, better ventilation and openable windows, and more staircases are all suggestions by Arjun Kaicker, the former head of Foster and Partners’ workplace team that influenced the gargantuan new HQs for Apple and Bloomberg, and the current leader of analytics and insights for Zaha Hadid Architects. “Everything has been about breaking down barriers between teams, but I don’t think spaces will flow into each other so much anymore.”

Furniture may change too. Office desks have shrunk over the years from 1.8 metres to 1.6 metres to now 1.4 metres, but Kaicker believes we’ll see a reversal of this as people won’t want to sit so close together.

Will legislation mandate minimum areas per person in offices, and reduce maximum occupancy for lifts and larger offices to minimise overcrowding? If so, there will be a big knock-on effect on the skyline. Will sky-scrapers survive if they are to become more expensive to build and be less efficient? The economic attractiveness to developers of building tall, and super-tall, offices and residential towers may be reduced.

On the other hand, will we see reduced office sizes, with working from home fast becoming the way of the future? And equally, will developers start providing specifically designed office spaces within the homes they build?

With 80 percent of infectious disease being transmitted by touching contaminated surfaces, especially steel and plastic, a hands-free environment is also envisaged. Futuristic offices are being designed around ‘contactless pathways’ – employees will rarely have to touch a surface with their hands to navigate through a building. Lifts can be called by a smartphone, avoiding the need to press a button. Blinds, lighting, ventilation, even ordering a coffee could be controlled from your phone. Motion sensors and facial recognition will automatically open office doors, all with the focus of eliminating direct contact with communal services, from the street to workstations.

This coronavirus pandemic has turned social contact into the ultimate evil. High density cities are being blamed for the rapid spread of the disease. After being cooped up for months, we’re likely to have a renewed interest in the value of urban green spaces as well as the public infrastructure of toilets, drinking fountains and handwashing facilities.

As Oliver Wainwright writes so eloquently in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, global cities boosterism will take some blows. He points to how the fluid network of metropolitan areas has been promoted, but now there’s more of a sense of the city as a place of safety, home and refuge.

What about the much-touted bringing together of cities within the Greater Bay Area. Does Covid-19 present a warning against migration? A warning against tourism and the inequality that results from temporary migrant labour; a warning against the gig economy with its labour market prevalence of short-term contracts and freelance as opposed to permanent jobs and the devastation of public services?

“There is something very clarifying about a pandemic,” says Wainwright, “you can see the absolute necessity of a public health service and a proper social welfare system. It creates a very clear picture of what is good.”

 

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