5 great things to come out of COVID-19
1. We are appreciating the space we surround ourselves in.
Our homes have now become our offices and our schools, and we are working on new ways to cohesively use the space shared by our families, housemates and others who live with us.
We have used this time to separate spaces within our homes into areas for work and life. Unused dining rooms have now become great workspaces and we are appreciating the natural light and view to our gardens.
If you have a passion for interior design, you may be appreciating why others like to work flexibly nature rather than being in the office at a single desk all day. Working From Home (WFH) has shown us how nice is it to have a space for private phone calls and transitional spaces to take breaks, away from a laptop. We have also found ourselves moving around a lot more due to being in a more portable space. In the office, we are prone to sitting at our computer doing work while on the phone, but WFH has shown us the importance of directing all our attention to the conversation.
2. We are developing new ways to work smarter and collaborate like never before.
The changes we are making during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be a shared experience and we are using this time understand each other on a new level and bond as a team. Where we have usually used boardrooms and meeting rooms to meet with colleagues, clients and partners, we are now discovering other methods. This will help us develop new ways of thinking when designing office environments and making us truly value the importance of collaborative work settings.
Where we used to always use coffee meetings to interact with clients and keeping in touch with industry colleagues often meant attending an event, we are having to rethink how to keep connected and keep our pulse on the industry at the same time. We have successfully had multiple group video/team meetings this week, some running into after work hours with a glass of wine in hand. Seeing faces rather than a traditional phone call is a great opportunity to connect during this isolation period. We have felt more in touch with the industry from these group chats where we have been able to share experiences of how we are all dealing with the current situation, our work/home life balances, how our projects are going and where we are currently seeing movement as a result to this crisis.
3. We are understanding the need to design transferrable spaces.
Understanding how we can transfer the space in stadiums, parks and convention centres to hospitals, as we have seen in Central Park in New York and NHS Nightingale in London, will change the way we design in the future and “future-proofing” of spaces has never become more valid. When you take away sports and concerts, what use do we have of a 50,000 seat stadium? Can the amenities be used to support a health system, or to house our homeless during difficult situations?
While we regularly make clients aware of the benefits of future-proofing workplaces, it is now even more obvious why future-proofing is so important in architecture, particularly when we are faced with a new and somewhat difficult situation. This will make us better designers in the future. We won’t be so set on a space providing users with a single use but will be set on an urban collective providing spaces for multiple, flexible uses.
4. We are yearning for knowledge on how the space around us can be better utilized.
When faced with rules around social distancing and the closure of spaces such as the local gym and coffee shop; our communal spaces, like parks, ovals and beaches, are being utilized differently. Our social time has changed to be more focused on the urban spaces over the built form, and only having access to public spaces within built zones means we will start to appreciate more green space rather than building on top of each other. And when these rules are relaxed, we are going to be able to use our newfound excitement to meet again and utilize these spaces more than ever before.
The new rules around social distancing will also help space allowances in the future. We can be so set on compliance and how many people we can squeeze in a small space rather than focusing on the comfort of that space and the comfort of people using it. Instead of squeezing desks into small offices to minimize costs, we can now see people don’t work as effectively when they are all crammed in on top of each other. Grocery store aisles, usually designed to fit two shopping trolleys, will be need to expanded to ensure the flow of traffic is not hindered by the number of people accessing the aisle.
It is safe to say that all of the spaces around us have been impacted, theatres, restaurants, sporting venues, and we will be able to better utilize space post COVID-19 using what we have learnt.
5. Our spaces are regenerating new life.
Our parks and public spaces, usually packed full of groups, markets and PT sessions, are now being used by fewer people, allowing these spaces the opportunity to grow and change into something more beautiful than ever before.
We have seen deer exploring subway stations in Japan and cashmere goats walking the streets in Wales. Delhi’s air quality has been the cleanest recorded in the past five years for the month of March. Before we return to the chaos and frenzy of urban living, we will remember the blue skies, faraway mountains and chorus of birds. We need to take this opportunity to rethink the way we design, interact and inhabit the earth and work harder to do the right thing for the environment instead of just self-focusing.
Erin Warner, Associate
Alyssa Hughes, Group Marketing Manager