Final Draft “The architecture of the post-Covid period”

The beginning of the year 2020 has brought to the world a new awareness about existence during pandemic. In the burst of this awareness many fields of our everyday life had to adapt, including the field of architecture. Well-established principles of architecture had to be reevaluated shifting the main priority towards the relationship between an architecture and a human health.

Being an architecture student, I first faced these adjustments during one of my assignments, when we had to design a community center considering a safe, Covid-19 free environment. In the beginning it was hard for me to develop new safety concepts and follow the health regulations. But over the time, it made me think about this new reality the architecture is moving toward. And as a future architect, I understand now, that with the burst of Covid-19 and possible future pandemics, the architectural planning and designing of new residential buildings, public spaces, work offices, and entire cities, would have to meet new considerations and tendencies.

In this research I expect to find some previous experiences of architects facing similar obstacles. I will also investigate some new technologies and green architecture tendencies which will fulfill the new requirements of safe environment. This research will help to understand consumers’ new expectations of different occupancy buildings.

Amado De Jesus is a Principal Architect and Green Architecture Consultant of A.P. de Jesus and Associates Firm in Philippines. In his article “Impact of COVID-19 on architecture” to Philippines Daily Inquirer he stays that in the past architects had already faced the consequences of various diseases and responded to them quite successfully. He brings some classical examples of adjusted architecture like Hausmann’s renovation of Paris in the 1800s, London’s infrastructure renovation in the wake of the city’s 1954 cholera outbreak, and the reaction of New York City to the miserable conditions of tenement housing. The author affirms that global pandemics has forced the architecture and urban planning to evolve in the past, and that Covid-19 pandemic would definitely bring changes in future building environment.

As a vice chairman of the Philippines Green Building Initiative, Amado de Jesus believes that Green architecture concepts will decrease the rate of sickness and improve mental functions of its occupants. He also says that the redesign of cities would have to undergo two major considerations – the accommodation of the sudden growth of sick people by providing medical supplies, spaces, and cemeteries in large scale, and by resuming the city life as normal as possible by accommodating residential buildings with functional and healthy spaces.  He insists on the concepts of green architecture in order to bring natural light and proper ventilation in homes.

Amado De Jesus also relies on new technologies to improve safety features of the buildings in the future. He brings out touchless technologies as automatic doors, voice-activated elevators, facial recognition, app-controlled rooms, and automatically washed and disinfected surfaces. The reduction of people gathering in airports he proposes to redesign security lanes with the improving of passenger’s flow, he also suggests embedding advanced automatic check-in systems. To increase the capacity of sick people in hospitals he suggests designing a hospital room in a way that it can be easily transformed into ICU. He offers to eliminate waiting area, substituting it to a compact nook with RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology to track and alert patients.

I strongly agree with author’s statement that eventually architecture will surpass all the circumstances of the pandemic and adapt to the new reality. I also believe that urban development would have to be reevaluated by reserving large areas of the cities not for commercial construction, but for green recreational areas, which in the case of new burst of pandemic could be quickly transformed to large mobile hospitals. As 2020 showed it is achievable in practice, when the whole world witnessed the erection of two hospitals for Covid patients in Wuhan, China in just over a week.

The author also brings up new technological innovations, which need to be incorporated with the building design in order to fight viruses and maintain the healthy environment inside the structure. I believe that technology is the future of not only commercial or industrial architecture, but also residential. The new digital technologies of air quality in the enclosed spaced should be introduced in every residential unit as well as new air-filtration systems. Every apartment of multi-unit building should be introduced to an open-air space like balcony or patio. The fresh air circulation should be introduced to the high-rise glass skyscrapers where typically windows are not operable.

Amado De Jesus opens his article with a quote of the pioneer of Modern architecture – Le Corbusier – saying “A house is only habitable when it is full of light and air.” Over 150 years later this statement gained its most relevance during present time. In fact, with the shifting towards online performance of our everyday tasks, people spend more time at home. And healthy productive environment of the people’s houses can be achieved with the close attention to the proper air circulation of the houses.

Phillip Kennicott – the Pulitzer Prize-winning art and architecture critic of the Washington Post – has conducted many famous architects and architecture-related professionals. In his article “The pandemic has shown us what the future of architecture could be” he analyzes and compares different responds and views on the future architecture. He opens his article with the introduction of relatively new building in Switzerland – the Blur Building – finished in 2002 by famous architects Diller+Scofidio Group. The uniqueness of that building lies in the artificial fog effect which blurs away and dissolve the entire structure. The building was described by its designer as “The public can drink the building.” Phillip Lennicott questions the relevance of the structure at the present time of pandemic – time of filtered air and sanitizers. He stays that architecture has faced its failure and assures that “people will spontaneously repurpose buildings if those buildings aren’t serving them well.” In his article he also brings up an example of an architecture graduate student of the University of California Jacob Sertich. For his final project, the student researched the topic of integration the senior living facilities into busy, dynamic urban life. The presentation of student’s work was scheduled right after Covid-19 outbreak, and by that time it was obvious that the entire proposal was destined to failure, as the elderly people should be isolated from the free transmittance of virus. Though the project received the top award for the concept, the young architect rethinks his idea in general. The author Kennicott interviews one of the designers of the Blur Building – Elizabeth Diller, world famous architect. She considers that future architecture should involve a new principle in its development – the fourth dimension – time. She strongly believes that the perfect model of the future city is the Highline Park, located in Manhattan. The elevated park helps to control the flow of its visitors by the means of forked pathways, and also visitor’s density introducing distanced seating areas. The park above the city also makes busy streets and subways less crowded as people gain a choice to travel along beautiful landscape.

Phillip Kennicott makes it very clear in his article that former unique buildings wouldn’t work in post-Covid era. And, unfortunately, I must agree with him. Despite uniqueness and characters of some world’s famous pieces of architecture, they lack the ability of coexistence with the modern reality. In my opinion, in the future architects would have to consider their buildings as an integral part of human life, rather than an independent living organism.

In the beginning of the 20^th century the Modern architecture brought many new points and principles of buildings. The concepts of open floor plan, glazed curtain walls, uninterrupted circulation were implemented and preferred in many designs. Nowadays, all these concepts would have to be reevaluated. As many families quarantine at home, the concept of open floor plan isn’t ideal any more since detached rooms need to be introduced to the household to prevent the spread of virus. Glazed curtain wall façade definitely brings to building some prestige, modernism and value, but inoperable windows don’t let the fresh air access inside, which have to be substituted by more flexible units. The circular uninterrupted circulation of Guggenheim Museum by F.L. Wright made this structure a world’s masterpiece for many decades. Unfortunately, nowadays such a feature can expose more people to virus.

In her interview Elizabeth Diller from Diller+Scofidio Group says, “The Pandemic is a problem that is going to be saved by medicine and not cured by architecture.” At some point I have to disagree with her opinion, as I think architecture plays a vital part of world’s fight against Covid-19. Though architects don’t have qualifications to treat people or develop vaccinations, they are responsible for the designing of the buildings where those procedures take place. Even if there is an efficient Covid-19 vaccine, it wouldn’t cure the planet unless the environment is designed to support its effect.

“How Covid-19 can transform the building where we live and work” is the video series by Washington Post, in which the journalist visits the homes and offices of famous architects during Covid isolation.

The journalist visits a young agriculture architect Cathleen Taylor who lives in her organic farm in Connecticut. In her 12 years career she was researching the influence of buildings on people’s health. She was one of the architects who designed a hospital for treatment of air-borne viruses in Butare, Rwanda. The implemented a new approach of the spatial arrangement in the hospital, by shifting all the means of circulation outside, and dedicating the interior space to the patients and medical stuff only. They also introduced a window access with the beautiful views to every patient what also helped to achieve cross-ventilation. She admits that the design of such facilities should be considered with the close attention to local climate and ecosystem, and that design strategy can differ a lot depending on the area where it is built. Another host of the video is world’s famous architect Steven Holl. He discusses his current project for Medical School College in Bogota. The building is only two stories and it is all outside. The main feature of the campus is the central courtyard which embraces the nature and brings it to the campus. The spatial arrangement of the auditoriums allows students to be involved in education from outside. Steven Holl considers that this building is a perfect example of campus architecture of post-Covid time. At the same time, he admits that such a concept highly depends on the climate and environment where ii is going to be built. The author of the video also visits the architectural giant firm Gensler which specialty is office buildings arrangement. The main concept of the firm is to treat the work environment as a creative collaboration space rather than the space for everyday tasks performance.

The video had not only a lot of useful information to consider but also provided a visual example of future architecture. I strongly agree with all the guests of the video and also think that the future if architecture should highly depend on the environment and climate possibilities of the specific region.

I think Steven Holl’s design of campus should be implemented for every university since the student’s collaboration is vital aspect of their educational experiences. For the areas with four-seasons climate Holl’s concept can still be introduced by shirting school year to warmers months of the year. Additional portable heating devices could be introduced for outdoor auditoriums as an option.

I also think we should not put a cross on the office buildings, but rather treat them with a new perspective. Unfortunately, not everyone has an opportunity to work from home on daily basis. To make an office building as an optional workplace would be an ideal solution for many working parents. In order to make workplaces more safe environment new regulations maybe introduced like bring your own device policy or application-operated digital facilities of the office.

In his interview Steven Holl mentioned that the current situation “sends us all to the first grade. And that’s something that he thinks is a positive since we’ve spent the last few decades basically wrecking the Earth.” I think his words have a very deep meaning. In fact, the humanity has been taking advantage of the planet, unless the planet strikes back at us. Only with the pandemic and being isolated from the entire world, we realized its value. In the future, I believe, the architects should carefully consider the nature and the possible impact new structures can bring to it. Architects of the future should be more respectful to the environment trying to preserve natural habitat as much as it is possible.

 

After performing my research and gathering opinions and views on post-pandemic architecture, as a future architect I marked down the path I should focus on. One of the main things which became clear is that the architecture would have to change. It was a relief to find out that architects of the past dealt with the circumstances of pandemic and did it quite successfully. Their experience brought new movements and trends in Modern architecture, and I think Covid-19 will bring new tendencies to the architecture of 21^st century as well. The architects of the future would have to consider the interaction of their structures with the nature, what is going to bring a new wave of Green sustainable architecture. Covid-19 brought our everyday tasks to a distanced performance, people work and study from homes, shop, and delivery food from online platforms, isolate themselves at homes. All these changes may shift the architecture towards development of rural areas rather than cities. The focus can be dedicated to the development of the residential buildings with outdoor spaces and efficient floorplans. This deurbanization may change the look of large cities by introducing large green areas which could be converted into mobile hospitals in case of another pandemic outbreak. The colleges and schools would have to meet rearrangement as well. The circulation of students on campuses should not be concentrated in one area, more naturally ventilated spaces would have to be introduced in the design. New technologies would have to be integrated in various occupancy buildings. The motion sensors, temperature detectors, touchless surfaces, air filtration devices would have to be essential part of every building. In general, we live during remarkably interesting time, when the old established normal would have to change to accept a new reality.