6 Architectural transformations post Covid-19 pandemic

There are historical evidences which show how various events triggered and transformed the spaces which we now live and shop in. The outbreak of Covid-19 is a similar event, which will change the Architectural planning and create a new normal.

Maybe its the first time, architects would be designing for a disease! Earlier, world wars affected architecture, even cold war did. The shopping malls that we now shop in is a result of cold war! The original idea of architect Victor Gruen, the inventor of malls, was to create a better community living by building all the essential services around the central mall. It ultimately grew as a prototype of government defense to securely built a shopping experience in a closed environment, away from threats of bombing.

Similarly, to stay alive amidst the threat of Covid-19, the architecture around us will reshape. This article tries to point out such post-Covid-19 architecture (Transformations Post COVID 19) changes in brief. If you want to read more in detail about each change, you can check out the blog given in the link at the end of this article.

6 transformations in Architecture post Covid-19

1. Inclusion of an office room in every house

Today, millions of people have experienced what it feels like to be working from home. For the time being, you might have setup your workplace on the sofa, or the dining table or in the study area. But despite the comfort of couch, you will notice the privacy issues and comfort of a well setup workplace which inspires you to work instead of oozing you off! That’s where people will start feeling the need of a dedicated office room, so that they can separate the ‘work’ from ‘home’. This will increase the productivity as well as keep you near to your home.

2. Revival of older office plans, instead of open office

With the preventive rule of maintaining 6ft distance between individuals, the open plan office seems to get buried in ashes. Due to which, offices might witness the revival of older office planning concepts such as action plan offices and the cubicle. In the advent of maintaining social distancing, closed and widely spaced office arrangement might come as a breakthrough. Collaboration will take place with better conferencing and interaction softwares.

3. 6 feet office concept

Addressing the issue of social distancing, real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield have come up with a “6 feet” office idea or a prototype which helps companies to redesign their offices according to their design pointers. This might eliminate the tiring part of critical thinking and speed up the process of building everything from scratch. You can read about their concept here.

4. Co-working offices might witness a rise in demand

If companies move completely into remote working, in the wake of future transformations post covid 19 threats, they would still need a physical place to cater to smaller population of employees at one time, for discussions and many other activities. Co-working areas are office spaces which are shared among people and are charged along the usage. You don’t need to lease property, built interiors, maintain it and all the other hassles which comes with a physical office.

5. Modified co-working spaces for individual employees

As the inclusion of office room in planning and people adopting to it will take time, people would need a private temporary remote office which is in close proximity to their home as well as provide privacy and updated technical equipments. A modified co-working office will help them out. These offices will have workstations with all the necessary upto date softwares and facilities for collaboration. Users can be charged on hourly, daily or monthly basis.

6. Need for local cultivation

This pandemic highlighted the fact that, there must always be a local source of cultivation which produces enough crops to sustain the region. This also saves cost and fuel arising out of transportation. This idea is based on two thesis topics of my classmates. First one is ‘Experience center for elderly’, wherein the retired part of persons life is spent in a well designed community, amidst vertical farms of crops, which they themselves cultivate, reap and sell. This has two benefits.

First, people are engaged into something which is fun, as the crops are not traditionally grown, but instead, with modern organic techniques which is sustainable. Secondly, the cultivation is also available for sale! The large scale implementation of this idea is the second thesis topic. It suggests tower like structures consisting of just farming.

These were 6 significant changes I could imagine on how architecture post covid would look like, during this lockdown. These are not assumptions, but is based on some critical thinking and research. You can find the detailed explanation of each change and it’s factors here. Also to add, these are just few pieces of the cake, there is much more beyond our capabilities which would occur. Please leave a comment and share this article amongst your friends.