Life after coronavirus: how will the pandemic affect our homes?

Life after coronavirus: how will the pandemic affect our homes?

As people around the world face the realities of self isolation, architect Sergey Makhno predicts how our homes will change once the coronavirus pandemic is over.


Life after the Covid-19 outbreak will never be the same as before. We are at the beginning of the end, waiting for a new beginning. Planet Earth will break its cooperation agreement with mankind unless we urgently revise our behaviour.

The forecasts appear one by one. Some of them are more optimistic, some not. But almost everyone agrees that, despite a decline of such unprecedented scale, humanity will still find the strength to recover.

Values ​​will change, our lives and habits will change, and our homes will also change under that influence. With that in mind, here are seven predictions for the changes that might occur.

Houses not apartments

High-rise buildings were designed to organise as many people as possible in one place. Health and hygiene were not a consideration. In times of pandemic, it is necessary to reduce contact with everything that is used in multi-storey buildings: elevator, elevator buttons, door handles, surfaces and, above all, neighbours.

After forced self-isolation on different floors above the ground, often without a balcony or terrace, we will all desperately want to have a house. It can be small, but with a courtyard and a terrace where you can have coffee in the morning.

Throughout time, the primary function of the house has been safety. Initially, it served as a hiding place from bad weather and predatory animals. Then, tall stone fortresses were built to prevent the enemy getting in. Today, people need a house that can effectively provide social isolation.

More than an escape from routine and urban chaos, the house now offers a retreat from viruses and infections. Urbanisation takes a step back as we relocate to small villages and city suburbs.

Bunkers better than open-plan

For survivalists – those constantly training to survive a coming apocalypse — there was already a trend for fortified buildings. But now we can expect that trend to become more widespread.

Looking at our real experience, films about the end of the world no longer seem to be so fantastic. The desire to prepare your home for natural or man-made hazards is no longer surprising. There will not only be a garage near the house, but also a hopper, or at least a fortified “minus” floor with a pantry for food and water.

We’ll also be saying goodbye to one of the main trends of recent years: open-plan spaces, with the entrance, living room, dining space and kitchen united. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the entrance area will be separated so that we can leave our shoes, clothing and belongings on the street, rather than carry dirt into the living quarters.

Self-sufficient power and water

The buildings of the future will be proud and independent, with their own water supply and heating. Geothermal wells are gaining popularity already. In addition to water, they can partially provide a home with heating.

There will be several other sources of heating to have as a safety net: a stove, a fireplace, a solid fuel boiler, a fuel generator, solar panels. Autonomous mini-stations generating alternative power will become a reality. The goal will be independence from the outside world, minimising risks in the case of a full shutdown.

Satellite internet is currently an expensive and inconvenient service, accessible only to certain individuals and organisations, such as maritime transport, mining and construction companies, and military organisations. In the future, developments for civilian use will be accelerated, offering us very quick access to the internet.

OneWeb and SpaceX were already planning to cover the entire planet with this technology before the pandemic began. OneWeb has already deployed 40 of a planned 648 satellites into the Earth’s orbit, while SpaceX’s Starlink project envisages the launch of 12,000 satellites into low orbit by the mid-2020s.

Filtration and neutralisation

Water and air filtration systems tend to be seen as an unnecessary addition, easily abandoned in favour of a designer table. After the pandemic the trend will change, as people worry about what might happen if a virus gets into the water supply. To make sure, people will be willing to pay for the excavation, surveys and filtration systems needed to install a well.

Manufacturers of smart home systems will go one step further. Their programs will not only control the temperature of the air in the house, but also its quality and, if necessary, they will automatically clean it. Air from the outside will of course be filtered.

Particularly demanding families may also create a cleaning room featuring antiseptic dispensers. Going through this space will be the only way into the house for deliveries or guests. Additionally, homes will also be equipped with a lamp that generates ultraviolet radiation, which can kill some harmful organisms, viruses and bacteria.

Home as the new office

During quarantine, most are forced to work from home. There will be people who will, on the first day after the quarantine, race to meet colleagues and drink that office coffee. But there will be those who will not want to return to the office.

More attention will be given to the arrangement of the workplace at home. Spatial organisation will change, with the place to work at home no longer a desk with a parody of an office chair and a lamp, slotted somewhere in the corner of the living room or under the stairs. Now it will be a completely separate room with large windows, blackout curtains and comfortable furniture. It will be technically equipped and sound-insulated.

In response, offices will make more effort to win us back. Everything that the top companies have will become commonplace.

Urban farming goes global

It used to be trendy to start small gardens near homes or on balconies, but now it will be a boom. As our grandparents told us, gardening is calming. It is proven that physical interaction with living plants is good for our mental health.

Growing what you eat is pleasant and gives you some freedom from your daily routine, particularly during self-isolation. Quarantine is perhaps the best time to get to know more about indoor gardens – how to grow plants from seeds and create a food ration, even if you live in a multi-storey building. In addition to producing food, indoor gardens can provide oxygen. The trend in phytowalls has been around for many years, but we have not explored the full potential it offers for interior design.

Going deeper is also an option, like in the recent Guy Ritchie film Gentlemen, where marijuana is produced in underground plantations. You could develop an underground basement with a garden, mini cheese factory or a winery. Of course, you need extra equipment here: artificial lighting, water and air filtration, soil fertiliser. But it would be worth it for fresh tomatoes.

Rejection of mass industry

People around the world was struck by photos revealing a new sky over China. After two months of forced abandonment of mass production, they could finally breathe fresh air.

There are many more pleasant discoveries ahead. The new world will be about things that matter. There will be fewer objects and they will be chosen more responsibly. More questions will be asked: are they made of natural materials? Does their production harm the planet?

In addition, governments will have to maintain local manufacturers to restore economic performance. Once you leave export and import, you will no longer be such frivolous cosmopolitans.

Wash your hands, stay at home and let’s create a new worthy life that the planet will no longer want to lose.

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Photographer Roberto Conte captures Chandigarh's iconic modernist buildings

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte

Photographer Roberto Conte has captured the geometric shapes of Le Corbusier‘s weathered concrete buildings at Chandigarh‘s in his latest series.

Conte’s images showcase the clean silhouettes of the buildings found in the modernist utopia, from the UNESCO-recognised World Heritage site of the Capitol Complex to lesser-known examples of Le Corbusier’s design.

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
Le Corbusier’s Palace of Assembly is one of the concrete building’s in the Capitol Complex

“With this project I want to give both an updated view of the current conditions of some iconic buildings of the history of architecture, and show the public that Chandigarh is also a lot more than the famous Capitol Complex, in terms of architectures and complexity,” Conte told Dezeen.

The capital of the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana is the French architect’s largest project.

Among the structures captured by Conte are Le Corbusier’s High Court and its vibrant coloured walls, Pierre Jeanneret‘s circular, twisted Sukhna Boating Tower, and the intriguing light patterns of Le Corbusier’s Tower of Shadows.

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
Tower of Shadows is another Le Corbusier design

Conte photographed the buildings at quiet times, putting the emphasis on the architecture rather than its surroundings.

“I checked the position of the buildings beforehand in order to have a better idea about the best possible time of the day for each architecture, according to the current season,” said Conte, who is based in Milan.

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
Conte captured the colourful walls of Chandigarh’s High Court

“I tend to avoid the presence of people, even if in India, of course, it’s harder than other countries,” he added.

“In most cases it has been enough to wait some time in order to find a view where the architecture was the clear subject of the image.”

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
The Sukhna Boating Tower has a twisting concrete ramp around it

Conte has spent years taking photos of modernist architecture all over the world.

“Chandigarh is absolutely one of the most attractive places for a photographer like me,” he said.

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
The Open Hand is a monument by Le Corbusier in Chandigarh

“All in all, Chandigarh – exactly like Brasilia – is a planned city whose masterplan was organised by one of the most important architects of the 20th century.”

“The fact that it’s located in such a particular context like the Indian one made it even more interesting to me,” he added.

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
Flats for the Members of Legislative Assembly were designed by Pierre Jeanneret

Chandigarh was built after India was violently partitioned in 1947. Lahore was assigned to Pakistan and the Indian side of Punjab needed a new capital.

The city was created by Le Corbusier, Swiss architect Pierre Jeanneret and British architects Jane Drew and Edward Maxwell Fry. It is home to iconic designs including Aditya Prakash’ Neelam Theatre.

Chandigarh photographed by Roberto Conte
Pierre Jeanneret designed the Gandhi Bhawan centre

Chandigarh is designed in a grid system and was one of the first planned cities in India.

Roberto Conte started photographing in 2006 and initially focused on Milan’s industrial ruins. He has previously documented post-war Soviet architecture in Georgia and photographed Edoardo Tresoldi’s Gharfa pavilion in Riyadh.

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Desert in Peru Shot in Infrared

De son road trip au Pérou, Paolo Pettigiani a ramené une série de photos infrarouges. Familier de la technique, qu’il avait déjà mise en oeuvre aux Maldives, au mont Blanc et à Dubaï, le photographe et directeur artistique italien a cette fois capturé une oasis de verdure au milieu du désert de la province de Palpa.

Teintées de rose et de blanc, ses photos infrarouges soulignent le contraste entre l’aridité des montagnes et la végétation que l’on trouve, au creux des sommets. « Les éléments contenant de la chlorophylle, tels que l’herbe, les feuilles et les arbres, reflètent fortement cette lumière infrarouge, invisible aux yeux de l’homme, explique le photographe. Les montagnes, au lieu d’être sèches et dépourvues de matière organique, deviennent blanches sur la photo infrarouge. »

Images : © Paolo Pettigiani








PIKUNIKU Game

Available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC and Steam, the doodle-like adventure game PIKUNIKU challenges users—who appear as a blob with telescopic legs—with puzzles and tasks in single or local co-op player modes. The game relies on a storybook-like plot line with mini games hidden within the larger mission and plenty of underlying relationships and Easter eggs to uncover—from “a deep state conspiracy” to a “fun little revolution.” Intended for kids and adults, PIKUNIKU is a well-developed game that’s both accessible and addictive. Watch the game’s trailer here.

A Call for Industrial Designers to Donate Their Spare N95 Masks to Hospitals

Do you have N95 masks in your shop that you can donate? Industrial designer Craig Mackiewicz writes:

“Calling all industrial designers, model makers, painters, builders and those in the trades: Our industries use the same masks that are currently protecting the doctors and nurses on the front lines of this pandemic. We know that they are running low on N95 masks.

“If you know of any stockpiles of N95 masks in your woodshops, model making studios, workshops, or supply cabinets–hospitals are currently taking donations. These masks are critical for them to stay safe and help those in need. Please reach out to anyone you know who might have N95 masks and urge them to donate them to their local ER. If you have masks, call your local hospital and ask if they are taking donations.”

A note I’ll add: I assume hospitals will not accept the masks unless they are still in their packaging, so check yours.

Nuwa is a micro guesthouse in Seoul with just one room

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

Design studio Z_Lab has included a huge porthole window and sunken bath inside this tiny guesthouse in northern Seoul, which measures under 30 square metres.

Nuwa is tucked down a narrow alley in Seochon, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Seoul’s Jongno-gu district.

The guesthouse takes over a traditional Korean home – otherwise known as a hanok – that measures just 29.3 square meters.

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

It initially had poor insulation and waterproofing, meaning locally-based Z_Lab had to completely gut the structure to make it hospitable enough to host Nuwa.

The interior now plays host to serene living spaces finished in natural tones. One corner accommodates a sleeping nook, where a mattress is supported by a slightly elevated plinth.

An adjacent wall has been punctuated with a huge porthole, giving guests a view of the small landscaped garden outdoors.

The window was also included as a loose reference to wayu, a Korean term for “laying down and sightseeing”.

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

“[Wayu] is a way of enjoying the spirit of entertainment and art,” explained the studio.

“Figuratively, it means enjoying paintings or books describing the landscape or historical sites, or appreciating small gardens at home when the time to go out into nature is not possible.”

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

“The round window is not an architectural vocabulary that’s frequently used in traditional Korean architecture,” said the studio’s principal designer, Junghyun Park.

“It was used in the house of several the aristocratic class and women’s house in palaces,” he told Dezeen.

“We think that a small space like Nuwa is not meant to be a complicated mass design, but give a strong first impression.”

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

Cream-coloured cushions have been placed on top of a timber bench seat to form a cosy reading area in the guesthouse.

There is also a long, walnut-wood table with a rough stone base where tea can be enjoyed.

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

It sits directly beside a sunken water bath in which guests can rest their feet. Additional wash facilities are hidden behind a door on the far side of the home.

As night falls, woven curtains can be unravelled from the ceiling to conceal guests from passersby.

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

Z_Lab was founded in 2014 by Noh Kyung Rok, Park Jung Hyun and Lee Sang Muk. Previous work by the studio includes a holiday home made from volcanic stone and a renovated farmhouse that’s designed to resemble the body of a whale.

The studio’s Nuwa project joins a growing number of single-room hotels that are popping up across the globe to offer more exclusive travel experiences to tourists.

Nuwa guesthouse by Z_Lab

Last year saw the opening of Trunk House in Tokyo – it takes over a 70-year-old geisha house and even has a tiny disco. Antwerp also has the One Room Hotel, which is set inside a skinny 17th-century residence that measures just 2.4 metres wide.

Photography is by Texture on Texture.


Project credits:

Interior design: Z_Lab
Construction: GRIDS
Furniture: GRIDS
Fabric: Cotone, Ilsin, Sabi
Lighting: 1004 Lighting
Planterior and landscape: Anmadang the lab, Design Studio Dogam
Microtopping construction: Materia Syndrome
Tea and teaware: Sarubia Dabang

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"Objectified" Design Documentary Streaming for Free for the Next Six Days

Running out of things to watch during the lockdown? Filmmaker Gary Hustwit has thoughtfully made his design documentaries free to screen–for a limited time. Every seven days he “unlocks” one, and for this week (March 24th to 31st) it’s “Objectified,” his product-design-focused video from 2009.

Objectified (2009, 75 minutes) is a documentary film about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves? With Paola Antonelli, Chris Bangle, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Tim Brown, Dunne & Raby, IDEO, Naoto Fukasawa, Jonathan Ive, Hella Jongerius, Marc Newson, Dieter Rams, Karim Rashid, Alice Rawsthorn, Smart Design, Jane Fulton Suri, Rob Walker and more.

You can watch it here.

How to Remove Protective Gloves Without Contacting the Outside of Them With Your Bare Hands

Wearing gloves to protect yourself from germs isn’t much help if, in the process of removing them, you accidentally wipe those germs all over your bare skin. Here’s the right way to take them off.

As seen here in the video on facemasks, healthcare professionals are trained to remove their facemasks without touching the outside of them. It’s the same with gloves, as seen in this diagram by the CDC [PDF]:

A quick video to demonstrate:

"The great work-from-home experiment could have far reaching positive impacts on our office culture"

The great work-from-home experiment

The mass work-from-home experiment imposed on us by coronavirus could finally force companies to embrace remote working, says Tom Ravenscroft.


Like many companies around the world, Dezeen has closed its offices and all of our staff are now working from home. We made the decision at the end of the week before last, as the coronavirus outbreak in the UK worsened. In the absence of government guidance, we decided we were not comfortable asking people to come into the office.

At a company meeting to explain the move to the team, there was unanimous agreement that sending everyone home was the right choice. Twelve days later, social distancing is now part of our collective vocabulary and working from home has become the new normal.

The Dezeen staff are part of the world’s largest-ever work-from-home experiment. The coronavirus outbreak is the most dramatic disruption to office working culture in our lifetimes. Companies across the world are being forced to embrace remote working and the digital technology that supports it.

The dawn of the internet threatened to revolutionise the traditional office, as near-instant communication promised to free large numbers of people to work from wherever they wanted – by now I definitely should be editing Dezeen from a beachside location. By 2020, slogging to a physical office and back was meant to be a thing of the past; instead, everyone would be “telecottaging”, as we quaintly called it in the noughties.

The coronavirus outbreaks have now forced many companies to stress-test working from home at its most extreme

But despite leaps in technology, the office has stubbornly refused to retire. Twenty years after the internet became ubiquitous, while many companies (including Dezeen) have introduced degrees of flexibility, few office workers telecommute on a daily basis. Disrupting long-held working patterns has been limited by both technology and corporate inertia. There has been a fear of the disruption that working from home might cause, effectively slowing its adoption.

The coronavirus outbreaks have now forced many companies to stress-test working from home at its most extreme. Where some businesses were resistant to a single team member telecommuting for a single day, they are now coming to terms with having the entire team working from home indefinitely.

And as many of us are learning, working full-time from home is possible. Of course, at least in these early weeks, it is far from ideal. At Dezeen, a largely online company that is seemingly perfect for a digital transition, the move has been expectably strained.

We have lost the immediacy of face-to-face communications. Conversations that should take seconds have been stretched out over minutes on Slack, ideas and instructions are being lost in translation within emails and we are all talking over each other in Google Hangouts. My own productivity is definitely suffering. The relative, calm of the office has disappeared. Concentrating amid constant cat and baby distractions is tough. Like many, I am now rotating between working in bed, at the kitchen table or in my garden shed-cum-office, which doesn’t have WiFi. While all good options, none is ideal.

We are finding ways to make working remotely work

However, as a team, we are learning. And next week will be easier, as we begin to develop personal and company-wide systems to understand how to work most efficiently in this unprecedented environment. We are finding ways to make working remotely work.

Certainly, there will be hiccups and barriers to smooth remote working and technology is not quite up to the task. Internet speeds and variability make downloading large files troublesome, remote server access is a pain, and teleconferences often have a frozen person. There is the constant worry that, with everyone else working from home too, internet services will become overloaded.

But the experiment will force innovation, driving investment and improvement. It will force teams to better understand distance working and try things that were previously thought to be impossible. Joining a meeting remotely used to be a novelty; this week our 15-person editorial meeting happened in a Google Hangout without any major issues. Next week’s full-team meeting will be even more efficient.

Once the world returns to normality, remote working will no longer be unusual

After the coronavirus outbreak recedes and the many of us return to work-from-office, bosses will no longer be able to say that working from home will not work, that it’s too complex, or that employees will take advantage of the lack of oversight and do less work. Once the world returns to normality, remote working will no longer be unusual. The undoubted benefits of flexible working will have been clearly laid out.

For one, I am going to enjoy saving an hour and a half a day on my commute and already being at home bang on six o’clock every day for the foreseeable future. Also, a major personal bonus, I’m getting to see my new-born baby far more regularly than the majority of young fathers.

This wide adoption of remote working also has the potential to fulfil some of the internet’s promise of democratising working. The demystification of remote and flexible working will hopefully be a huge help to those for whom it is not possible to work traditional hours in a traditional office.

The enforced work-from-home experiment will not signal the death of the office

Although some companies may have well-meaning “flexible working” policies in place for parents, carers and less-able bodied people, these are often not fully understood or embraced. All will benefit from the lifting of suspicion and confusion that has surrounded flexible working since people first started disappearing from their desks and had to be trusted to work remotely.

Although enforced by unprecedented circumstances, the global shift away from office-based environments could have a far-reaching positive impact on our office culture.

For many, myself included, returning to work-from-office will be tough. I will miss the extra hour of sleep, lunch at home, hanging with children or pets. However, there will be many, myself included, who want to get back into the routine, want to see people in an office and have face-to-face meetings.

The enforced work-from-home experiment will not signal the death of the office – it will just highlight the many benefits of remote working and lead to true flexibility for the greater good of business and individuals alike. Hopefully, it will lead many companies to develop a healthier relationship with flexible working and all of the digital technologies that support it. This will positively impact numerous people’s daily working practices and make office-style jobs more inclusive.

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Competition: win a copy of Where Architects Sleep by Sarah Miller

Competition: win a copy of Where Architects Sleep by Sarah Miller

For our latest competition we’re offering readers the chance to win one of three copies of Where Architects Sleep, The Most Stylish Hotels in the World.

Curated and edited by Sarah Miller, founding editor-in-chief of Condé Nast Traveller UK, the book is “the ultimate, global accommodation list”, bringing together the expert opinions of more than 250 of the world’s most esteemed architects.

Between them, they have given more than 1,200 recommendations from better-known destinations to secret spots. We’ve teamed up with publisher Phaidon to give away three hardback copies of the book.

Where Architects Sleep, The Most Stylish Hotels in the World
We’re offering readers the chance to win one of three copies of Where Architects Sleep

From luxury rooms to budget escapes, Where Architects Sleep showcases an extensive array of architects’ favourite international places to stay for both work and leisure.

Desert, urban, countryside and island locations are all featured, including The Upper House in Hong Kong – a number one for Amanda Levete – and Villa Flor in Switzerland, chosen by Norman Foster.

“In the heart of an unspoiled village called S-Chanf, this is a simple but sophisticated guest house,” says Foster about Villa Flor.

“Its corridors host exhibitions by artists, many of whom are frequent guests,” he continues. “It is discreet and unpretentious without any signs to advertise its presence.”

Competition: win a copy of Where Architects Sleep by Sarah Miller
The book is curated by founding editor-in-chief of Condé Nast Traveller UK, Sarah Miller

Insightful reviews, specially-commissioned maps and essential information are included to offer easy-to-navigate pages, which are organised by geographical area.

As well as suggesting destinations, the contributing architects also detail places they wish they had designed themselves.

More than 100 countries are covered in the book, with the most recommended hotel being 7132 Hotel in Vals, Switzerland – the hotel most architects wished they had designed.

Designed by Japanese architect Kengu Kuma, if the top-floor presidential suite of this hotel is booked then the visitor’s helicopter and limousine transfer will also be included.

Where Architects Sleep, The Most Stylish Hotels in the World
A host of well-known architects have given over 1,200 recommendations

The winner of the “all-time favourite” category is Benesse House in Japan, while joint-winners Le Pavillon de la Reine in Paris and Das Stu in Berlin steal the prize for “best-kept secret”.

The Connaught in London received the highest votes for “luxury”, while Amangiri in Utah had the most votes for “worth the travel”, and “eco-conscious” is won jointly by Hotel Whitepod in Switzerland and Heritance Kandalama in Sri Lanka.

Where Architects Sleep, The Most Stylish Hotels in the World
Where Architects Sleep is “the ultimate global accommodation list”

Miller launched Condé Nast Traveller UK in 1997 and stayed at the title for 15 years. She went on to become European editor of travel and leisure and today runs Sarah Miller and Partners – an agency that creates brand strategies and content for a range of luxury and lifestyle brands.

The author also sits on the international advisory board of École hôtelière de Lausanne, a renowned hospitality institution.

Three readers will win a copy of Where Architects Sleep by Sarah Miller, first published by Phaidon in January 2020.

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Competition closes 22 April 2020. Three winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Terms and conditions apply.

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