To say that coronavirus is changing the way we live our lives is a gross understatement. As familiar spaces become filled with plastic dividers, one-way movement systems, and tape on the floor, it is evident how radically coronavirus is changing the way we occupy and share spaces.
Coronavirus is not the first disease to significantly impact design and architecture.
In an interview with the New Yorker, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina discussed the way tuberculosis affected modernist architecture. Tuberculosis hospitals were built with the intention of eradicating dark, dirty corners where bacteria could hide, and replacing them with the open spaces and large windows that we associate with modernism.
Coronavirus, however, is a different beast altogether. The danger no longer hides in the corners of our rooms, but in other people and public spaces. Coronavirus, unlike Tuberculosis, asks of our architecture not to open spaces up, but instead, to divide and defend. Space now needs to be separated into small bubbles of safety, surrounded by tape and plastic dividers: private spaces within public ones.
Our demands from our private spaces are changing too, as we suddenly find ourselves spending more and more time there. Acoustic design has become a priority as families and flatmates share spaces to make calls. We’ve all become masters of re-designing, re-decorating, repurposing.
In these 5 podcasts, you can listen to industry professionals discuss the changing nature of design and architecture, and how the virus is fundamentally changing the way we interact with our world.
1. Urban Political Podcast : Covid-19 And Its Impact On Public Life And The Use Of Public Space
In this episode, three industry professionals discuss people’s behaviour in public spaces in three very different cities: Dortmund, Germany; San Francisco, USA; and Isfahan, Iran. Apart from comparing major shifts in each city’s planning, social distancing innovations, and re-purposing of spaces, they also compare how each city’s residents have responded to these changes, analysing the psychological impact spaces have on their occupiers.
2. City Talks: Richard Florida on the Future of Cities After Coronavirus
This episode is a great listen if you’re interested in the role that cities play in our lives, and how governments and different corporations are implementing change. The discussion follows whether office space will disappear, how public transportation will change, and how people are innovating in the realms of one-way movement, placement of sanitation stations, and socially distanced design.
3. The Takeaway: Is Coronavirus Changing How We Look At Public Spaces?
Public spaces are designed with the intention of being safe and welcoming. All Covid regulations, however, are pushing for the opposite perception. During this 8-minute episode the guest speaker, assistant professor of architecture and urbanism Sara Carr, discusses our perception of public spaces both on a psychological and physical level.
4. You Are Not So Smart: Why People Waited So Long To Take Precautions Against Covid-19
This podcast looks at our relationship with personal space, particularly why people didn’t want to stay at home, and how they were then persuaded to. How do we shift from encouraging people to use public spaces to convincing them to stay home? How do we convince people to occupy certain spaces but not others? The episode invites loads of interesting experts, both psychologists and architects, to share their expertise.
5. 99% Invisible: Masking For A Friend
This is one of my favourite podcast series of all time, and is great to listen to if you are interested in the way small design innovations impact our psychology. In this episode, they discuss mask wearing: how it was innovated, and how it was received in different cultures. This episode also features Medical Anthropologist Christos Lynteris, who worked at St Andrews at the time of recording.
The period of isolation we have all experienced, or are currently experiencing is very alien to the way we are used to thinking about our shared and private spaces. Public spaces are where communities come together, and where opportunities are created through socialisation. Our spaces can make us feel connected, inspired, or trapped and sad. Hopefully these podcasts have given you more insight into the psychology behind the spaces we occupy, and perhaps given you inspiration to take charge of the spaces around you.