Pandemics as the new normal

As an Architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.

-Norman Foster

nCoV19, Covid 19, Novel coronavirus – has been in charge of the world ever since it first made its presence known in Wuhan, China. The world was put in turmoil on the eve of 2020, and ever since then it feels like we are all just living in a bad dream. From going about our busy lives rushing from one place to the other - job, school, college, site, socializing; we are now in a standstill with our lives on hold. Billions of people all around the world have been restricted to their homes. Grocery and supply runs are getting regulated. Airports had started quarantining people long before the world went into quarantine. People who once came back home just to sleep, now spend all of their hours, days and weeks inside.

Architecture responded to this change in the form of fast constructions and prefabricated modules that serve as quarantine facilities, pop up clinics and emergency hospitals. The system of social distancing has seen hand drawn markers at every 6ft for queues and for the first time the ward system in different cities have come into major play as the ward leaders in places like Mumbai have been called to duty to contain and regulate each ward. Offices and public spaces have been abandoned. Buildings that have the infrastructure to support a large number of people have been converted to emergency medical facilities. The roads and highways that we have been focusing on in the name of development now lay empty. While the four walls of our houses that have been getting smaller and smaller with each year are the limit to our world.

With companies going online, Work from Home becoming the new culture, redesigning home spaces to cater to this shift in lifestyle is going to be of utmost importance. While airports, offices, public spaces will evolve in design to space out and provide minimal contact between people, talks of shifting towards technology driven, no touch systems to opening doors, calling lifts and moving through spaces, we must take a step back and first look at more passive and offline solutions to such problems. Because while the technology advanced environments paint a rosy picture of the future look of our cities, the truth still lies in the fact that we cannot afford such expensive and high maintenance modules.

To adapt to this new normal, people have been retrofitting their spaces, making arrangements to disrobe and disinfect right as they enter their homes. Getting innovative to reduce the chances of bringing the infection home to their loved ones. Finding new ways and means to keep entertained while also creating designated work spaces in their homes.

While the people are trying to do their bit during the quarantine, the Architecture community has been on an uproar over the possibilities of change that may come afoot to the concept of cities and the built environment. There have been a lot of talks, webinars and online lectures over how covid will change the perspective towards cities and how it will impact the spaces around us. While the discussions push towards the use of high technology intensive solutions and large space requirements to accommodate new widely accepted functions such as a home office space, underground bunkers, and opting for self sufficient homes instead of apartments, we must keep in mind the viability and the capacity of these solutions being adopted world wide by ever economic group. Cities are a part of our lives, and its density is what makes it work while also where most of its problems originate – it is a double edged sword.

Encouraging the professionals more into research and development of materials and technological solutions, while may be beneficial to commercial enterprises and development, it is necessary to focus first on the basic unit of our urban lives - Our Homes.

The lifestyle of Indian citizens have changed and evolved continuously through these past hundred years. From being a solely agrarian and rural country with smaller and spaced out settlements with community living, we have now adopted into a westernized concept of high density fast paced urban lifestyle. This lifestyle has brought us into flats in high rise apartments in compact cities where the ability to have a metre of space around you is a luxury and a luxury more to build a support network of trusted friends and family in this same environment. Responding to such lifestyles, houses themselves have grown smaller as they are simply a space to rest the head at night. Now those same tiny apartments are the extent of our world for these past months and the fact that the spaces where not designed with a lot of thought, is now affecting us.

Rethinking this space around us, what can be the cost effective solutions to this situation? How can our homes assist us in case a quarantine like this happens again? How can we cater to a family member who is supposed to be quarantined without ourselves being affected? How can we minimise touching unnecessary surfaces within our homes as well?

To break down the problem itself and listing down the absolute facts and preventive measures that we have been advised to observe, we can find the solutions that we need. So, first looking at a few things that are advised by WHO:

1. Washing hands, thoroughly and more frequently

2. Practicing social distance, keeping at least 1m distance from a person who is unwell

3. Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth as our hands touch a lot of other surfaces

4. Stay and home, isolated yourself, if feeling unwell

Observing these few rules requires us to form certain habits and take certain precautions such as limiting contact with people, creating a cleanup ritual after coming home from outside, stressing in keeping our home environment clean, creating a daily routine to include our Work from Home schedule all the while trying to stay mentally and physically well so as to not require medical facilities and increase the burden on them. To accomodate all these new requirements our houses have to evolve.

So considering everything, how will the post pandemic new houses look like?

Mud room concept

Entry to our homes can no longer be direct. There has become a need for a foyer space where we can remove shoes, and leave all unessential artifacts that do not need to be taken inside the house. The Japanese Genkan areas can be a good example for such a space. This will help limit bringing outside dirt and dust inside. The space requirement for this is low and can be easily integrated in the apartment style living as well. Maybe throw in a guest bathroom near it where you can immediately wash hands and change out of outside clothes, or even take a bath if you want to be thorough.

Attached bathrooms

Previously, attached bathrooms seemed a luxury for most apartment flats with only one or two rooms with them. Now in a situation where a family member due to some reason is suspected to have a disease, or is ill, or has been advised to be quarantined; it is imperative that there are rooms available with attached bathrooms within the house where he/she could be isolated for the designated period. This ensures that the contact with that person is limited while also providing with sufficient space to live without becoming caged or claustrophobic.

Office rooms

With the schools, colleges, and offices going online and Work from Home becoming widely implemented where possible, the need for office rooms or study rooms may become a new mandate in the coming future. Such spaces seemed as luxury once will now have to be considered while planning a house. Here there has to be innovative designing involved as the number of people who may require such a space may differ from family to family. So how can we cater to it in an apartment living situation where space is constrained and square footage is expensive? One way to go about it would be to provide one office room big enough for at least two occupants or create a planning layout for flexible spaces.

Flexibility of Space

When the space inside is limited, there is a need for the same space to be multifunctional and be able to cater to different requirements at different times. We have seen this concept in Studio apartments where one room serves all purpose. So why can’t our normal standard homes also be designed to be multi functional? Using movable walls or partitions to rooms, more open planning to provide seamless spaces which can at times be all added to create a single larger space. Creating nooks and corners that can be converted to work spaces with privacy. Creating study or work areas instead of rooms so that that space as well can be used for something else when no one is working.

Balconies

When the world forces you to stay inside, look outwards. During this quarantine, people have found solace in their tiny 1.5x2m balconies which have given them the freedom to simply step outside. This is a luxury not many have and must be thought of a mandatory element, especially in the tiniest apartment. Designing bigger and larger balconies or just providing french windows along the balcony can substantially open up a cramped apartment and provide respite to those within.

Openings

Doorways and openings like windows have to be reconsidered. Door handles easily become fomites as they are the sole means to access the space beyond it. And while there have been talks to using automatic doors that do not need to be touched at all, what are the other more passive alternatives? If the problem lies in our hands touching various surfaces and transferring the virus or bacteria, what if we remove our hands from that equation? We have all opened a door once in our lifetime by kicking it. So thinking along those lines if we use interfaces such as sliding doors with handles not for our hands but a niche at the bottom for our feet, we could eliminate one surface of contact as well as create more flexible interfaces within our homes. Similarly, windows would play an important role as the connection to the outside. Top hung sliding windows or outside swing windows will be more effective as it would increase the size of the open area.

Epidemics have always been changing our built environment, from laying our first service infrastructure after Cholera and Plague epidemics to the modernist revolution during the times when war and disease was prevalent with tuberculosis in the lead, the change from heavily ornamented and decorative interiors to smooth, uncluttered surfaces that would be easier to clean and keep hygienic. HIV and AIDs saw the need for large scale isolation and the recent Ebola outbreak brought portable and adaptable quarantine facilities and provision of emergency procedures to places like Airports.

In the age where the people have been highly connected through these advance means of transportation, reducing travel across the world into just 18 hours, it has also provided an easy passage for harmful things such as viruses to all its parts. South Korea learnt from its experience with MERS and established effective emergency procedures. Now the rest of the world must catch up and adapt to a future where such super viruses will be more prominent and adapt their cities to be more resilient in the face of such a crisis.

The built environment has always evolved to accommodate the need of the hour. Now as designers we need to rethink the present to accommodate the need of the future.