Post Pandemic Architecture

https://www.lukejerram.com/glass/

1. Coronavirus COVID-19 Glass Microbiology by Luke Jerram

Post Pandemic

Architecture

The day after …

Tatiana Páez, Architect

We are confined after the outbreak of a virus that took the whole world by surprise and became a Pandemic; it was dispersed with the use of globally interconnected commercial aviation, hub to hub, during an annual mass human transit event: the Chinese New Year.

As time goes by, we learn to rethink ourselves as humans and our way of living, understanding this concept in Architecture as any space that gives ample shelter to human activity and that specifically today, given the crisis, is concentrated in the home.

Martin Heidegger in his text Building, Living, Thinking Defines:

"...the ancient word bauen (in German: to build) means that man is insofar as he inhabits..."

Everyone who has been able to, has transformed the execution of his productive activity from the space that shelters him. From my point of view as an architect, I am interested in taking advantage of these days to do a mental exercise thinking about the object of my work, once human activity is definitely influenced by this new way of living, which today we have to assume, from a human and evolutionary characteristic of survival: Adaptability. Evolutionary capacity that today we can make use of to overcome this moment.

In her April 17 Webinar: "Designing in a Virtual World", designer Patricia Urquiola illustrates this capacity by questioning whether we should be amphibious like the newt or the mermaid.

The idea is to identify characteristics of value within the space that welcomes us from re-visiting it.

• The scale of the urban has logically already begun its redefinition; we speak of changes in public space in terms of its dimensions, its density, its use and the way it serves human activity.

3. Collage: Tatiana Paez

2. Collage: Tatiana Paez

1. The size of spaces for urban mobility will undoubtedly be rationalised for conscious use, or else they will be resized in such a way as to avoid crowding and encourage the preservation of social distance.

2. The towers as a vertical solution to the good use of urban land will not be demolished or abolished as a concept, but will definitely be revised to generate a new standard of space pursuing a less concentrated use. In the future they will possibly be regulated by new density parameters, promoting greater minimum measures for the development of life within the walls.
   

4. Collage Le Corbusier´s El Modulor/Coronavirus por Tatiana Paez

3. In a separate area, there is the service provided by an urban public space, where in order to preserve health, it is necessary to think of better places that collaborate in promoting hygiene. This pandemic is already being talked about as the first of many others that could emerge and spread in the future..

• On the next scale, the architectural one, I identify:

Sustainability: aiming at environmental preservation measures to insert buildings into the urban grid. Any alternative energy solution useful for this purpose should be increasingly strengthened from the architectural proposal.

Ventilation and natural lighting: This confinement may have shown in each home the inconvenience of spaces without ventilation and natural lighting.

Spaces that put in contact with the outside, that give opportunity of moments of relaxation or recreation, the social networks are daily nourished of how much they have served balconies, terraces, roofs, private back yards, or some corner where to make a routine of Yoga, of Meditation or of Exercises. I like to think of clients feeding the design program by demanding a solution to the need for controled contact from the intimate to the “exo-world”.

A Transitional entrance space with capacity for disinfection and change of clothing. Already common in healthcare and food production, today we all find ourselves in the task of improvising by adapting to the new discipline of preserving a healthy environment separate from outside contact where there is a high risk of contagion. I imagine a place to take off your shoes, get undressed, wash yourself, change into your household clothes and, taking care of all the details, you can also find a place to wash and dry your clothes.

5. Collage por Tatiana Paez

E. A Space for Delivery and Collection, is the transitional space to another scale and with another function.

An activity that has increased in the attempt to maintain consumption by avoiding contact and contagion, gives a new role to the Lobby, the Foyer, the Hall, or the Lobby inside the houses, towers or residential complexes.

Already the delivery companies before this event and with commercial vision, have implemented the idea of automated delivery stations of packages, with compartments of different sizes adjustable to the space occupied by each package, then why not think about adapting the access areas with this new service where users avoid contact with the delivery, where they can leave their orders in deposit waiting for the passage of time, or where to make a disinfection prior to entry of the content purchased to the most intimate space.

F. A Shared or personal private space for Home-working/Home-Schooling.

No doubt many will join the group of trades exercised from the figure of the freelancer from home, this has been an architectural reality since technology has made us ubiquitous. However, I read a lot on the net about the lack of space to isolate oneself inside the house and be able to work interconnected.

6. Imagen por Tatiana Paez

Already in some configurations, a minimum space for a small desk to support the laptop is not sufficient, it is also desirable to allow the alternate use of a well equipped low traffic place within the residence or to adapt a personal place that allows work meetings without interference. It is likely that many residences already have something similar, what was not contemplated is the need for 2 or more family members to be isolated to learn or work simultaneously inside the house.

G. Minimalism: not because of the purism of language in the handling of compositional forms, not as a style, but reoriented and rethought to allow proper hygiene in fomites: any inanimate object that, once contaminated or exposed to infectious agents (such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses or fungi) Source C, Dr. "Fomites, fomites, fomites! | Microblogology". Retrieved 2019-03-08.

Here, new knowledge about the durability of viruses on different surfaces can be incorporated to refine the choice of materials in interior design.

New knowledge of the durability of viruses on different surfaces should be incorporated here to refine the choice of materials in interior design.

Finally, aspiring to conclude with an element useful for the analysis, and which provides a formal starting point, there is a typology that has been studied extensively in Western culture, which could once again be a reference for architecturally resolving this return to introspection on a global scale that illness, mistrust and uncertainty have brought us.

It occurs to me that many of these topics are well conceptualized in the continuum from the Roman Domus, the Andalusian houses, the colonial Central Patio houses to the Patio Houses of Alberto Campo Baeza, which give preponderance to the character of security and robustness in its walls defined towards the exterior/urban and a whole plexus of options for the interior/ living space.

7. Domus Romana, Casas Andaluzas,

Esquema Casa Colonial,

Casa Cala Arq Alberto Campo Baeza

In the collective housing, a good synthesis could already be anticipating the project of Il Bosco Verticale by the architect Stefano Boeri in Milan, Italy, or in the project 8Tallet by BIG or Bjarke Ingels in Copenhagen, which already shows singular solutions singular with a complex composition to offer its own outdoor space for each inhabitant.

8. Collage arriba: 8 Tallet BIG Collage abajo: Bosco Verticale/Stefano Boeri

Image Sources:

1. Coronavirus COVID-19 Glass Microbiology by Luke Jerram, Fuente: https://www.lukejerram.com

2. Collage por Tatiana Paez, Fuentes: https://imcreator.com/blog/evolution-website-builders/; https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/man-icon-male-symbol-glyph-pictogram-vector-20293363

3. Collage por Tatiana Paez, Fuentes: https://www.leipzig.de/news/news/corona-pandemie-stadt-leipzig-startet-informationskampagne-leipzigbleibtzuhause-im-stadtbild-und-a/

4. Collage por Tatiana Paez, Fuentes: https://www.pngitem.com/middle/iimbmx_transparent-modulor-png-le-corbusier-modulor-poster-png/; https://www.lukejerram.com

5. Collage por Tatiana Paez, Fuentes: Selección de búsqueda random con palabras clave: balcones, Coronavirus; España Italia.

7. Domus Romana: https://www.slideshare.net/antoncurr/architettura-la-domus, Casas Andaluzas: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/V-Pica-2014-Comparative-study-of-the-principal-medieval-domestic-types-in-alAndalus_fig3_318607925Esquema Casa Colonial: https://laderasur.com/articulo/lecciones-del-pasado-la-casa-chilena-tradicional/,Casa Cala Arq Alberto Campo Baeza: https://www.archweb.it/dwg/arch_arredi_famosi/Alberto_Campo_Baeza/Raumplan_House/Raumplan_house_graphics.htm

8. Collage abajo: Bosco Verticale/Stefano Boeri Fuente: https://www.archiscene.net/residential/vertical-forest-stefano-boeri/; stefano boeri smart forest city Collage arriba: 8 Tallet BIG, Fuente: https://big.dk/#projects-8