DUVEL Social Spaces
With this new pandemic, we (architects) are challenged to reflect on our built environment and adapt it to a lifestyle now toppled by social distancing.
How social interactions will be like Post Confinement? Should it be a mere adaptation or should we rethink it all? How can we preserve freedom within new guidelines? ‘Physical Solutions’ such as access control, door automation systems, antibacterial surfaces, etc… already exist but are not sufficient for a response to the way we need to shape the buildings of tomorrow. Spatial Possibilities need to be reinvented. Architecture structures the way people interact, it must give them the feeling there are no restrictions because no matter what, interaction will always take place.
The good news is that we might not need to reinvent it all, just adapt. Uncertainty will drive us to adapt, expand and contract according to the needs. Our sphere of proximity will be dictated by the government to shield the healthcare system from being swamped. In order to rethink the social space of tomorrow, we will need to focus on HYPER ORGANIZATION, to rethink how people circulate and how to control the flux.
Circulation will become more important than ever; it will not merely be buildings with “corridors” but spaces with an “incredible architectural experience” where people will move through. When the pandemic will spring up, a smooth and continuous unidirectional circuit will be implemented, it will deploy naturally.
Eating and having a beer is perhaps the most important activity in a social space. In Europe, it all started in Italy and different countries lived the confinement differently… No “X”, no “cove chairs”, no plexiglass, etc. provide for a viable solution. We envision a future where the tables themselves will spread organically to create social distancing in a natural flow, encouraging social interactions while preserving social distancing.
In this process of expansion and contraction, covered outdoor space will become indoor spaces when more space will be needed to guarantee social distancing much needed when the virus will wake up…