POST-COVID HOMES TOUCHLESS, HEALTHIER, DEDICATED SPACES
Pre-COVID-19 home and design trends for 2020 were predicted to highlight sustainability and simple luxuries. These are recurring trends throughout the years, but post-COVID, these have become essential.
The pandemic has taught man that his home is not only a sanctuary after a day’s work but it has become his own version of a “disaster-proof bunker.” In just two months, the world has seen how a house can be a workplace, wellness center and school.
Granted, home offices and gyms have been featured in some homes that can well afford extra spaces or those homes whose homeowners work from home or are engaged in an active lifestyle but COVID-19 drastically changed these.
In an article published in the online edition of
Architectural Digest dated 22 May 2020 entitled “These Are the 7 Requests Clients Will Make Post COVID 19,” homes are now expected to feature fully operational home offices “with proper seating, work surfaces, lighting, acoustics and temperature control.”
It is a space that is designed to host a slew of activities beyond the usual desktop-and-shelves set-up. As more and more people are expected to work from the comfort of their homes given that there is still no vaccine, let alone cure for COVID-19, and as many risk experts anticipate more crises with a similar nature in the future, working at home is seen as the “new normal.”
Education is another sector that had been severely impacted and as such will also see changes in homes that would need conducive learning spaces.
Health and sanitation also play crucial factors. Touchless appliances and gadgets and antibacterial or antimicrobial surfaces will be fixtures in future homes. Home gyms and wellness spaces will be considered a must as well as open spaces for multiple use, not just only for recreational purposes.
In the article “Architecture Post COVID-19: The Profession, the Firms and the Individuals” published in ArchDaily.com, home is redesigned for the new normal with features like “green areas and gardens, exploitable rooftops, natural light, and ventilation, balconies, and terraces, minimal and wholesome indoor environments, transitional and filtered entrances.” The latter is the result of stringent health measures to avoid contamination. The pandemic has taught man that his home is not only a sanctuary after a day’s work but it has become his own version of a ‘disaster-proof bunker.’
A guestroom is now going to be designed as a fully equipped room that could function as a quarantine space.
Architects and designers will focus more on “emergency architecture and crisis architecture,” according to the ArchDaily article.
“Emergency architecture and crisis architecture are topics that will start taking center stage as the world changes. Oriented towards war-related displacement and camps, in earlier times, these themes will be more focused in the near future on mitigation of diseases and natural incidents,” the article states.
If furthers that “sustainability will be an integral part of every approach and projects will become more self-sufficient.”
With world economy that is spiraling down to a global recession, minimalism has never been emphasized and adaptive reuse is becoming an operative word for many designers and homeowners. KATHLEEN A. LLEMIT