Designing spaces in a post COVID-19 era
 

Designing spaces in a post COVID-19 era

whitakerarms

That gov.uk document that was linked, that looks a bit outdated doesn't it?

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Nazart

@whitakerarms how so?

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whitakerarms

Well the text says prevalence of Covid decreased. I think this was from earlier on in the summer.

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Nazart
Posted by: @whitakerarms

Well the text says prevalence of Covid decreased. I think this was from earlier on in the summer.

Where does it say prevalence of Covid decreased? I couldn't find it....

 

Naz

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whitakerarms

@nazart it says so three times on the page. Copying and pasting...

 

Now, the circumstances have changed. The prevalence of coronavirus (COVID-19) has decreased, our NHS Test and Trace system is up and running and we are clear about the measures that need to be in place to create safer environments within schools.

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In this guidance for the autumn term, maintaining consistent groups remains important, but given the decrease in the prevalence of coronavirus (COVID-19) and the resumption of the full range of curriculum subjects, schools may need to change the emphasis on bubbles within their system of controls and increase the size of these groups.

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Equipment and resources are integral to education in schools. During the summer term, their use was minimised, many were moved out of classrooms, and there was significant extra cleaning. That position has now changed for the autumn term, because the prevalence of coronavirus (COVID-19) has decreased and because they are so important for the delivery of education.

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Nazart

@whitakerarms it's odd, the document states the guidance was updated on 1 October 2020.

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Chris
Posted by: @whitakerarms

Well the text says prevalence of Covid decreased. I think this was from earlier on in the summer.

You have a point there. The cases by end September or beginning Oct had already risen higher than ever (UK figures), so it looks as if not all sections of the page have been updated.

Cheers,

Chris

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Chris

Yet another example of design nonsense

The more I read about Covid, the more I think there's people who want to hop on the "solultions to pandemic" bandwagon, just to show that they are current with what's going on but have no real clue on what to do about it.

Woods Bagot devises office layouts for workplaces post-coronavirus

 

The four workplace models – Culture Club, In and Out, Community Nodes and Collectives – are designed with the idea that a percentage of employees will still work from home. Each has different arrangements of desks, chair and couches.

"Simply reducing density and cleaning more is not giving companies a good reason to bring people back to the workplace," said Woods Bagot. "Everyone is talking about how to make the post-Covid office safe, but no-one is talking about how to strengthen culture and performance."

So far, we have four flashy names and the notion that culture and performance need safeguarding too. Fair enough.

 

 

In Culture Club, small groupings of sofas, coffee tables, chairs and cafe tables outfit almost the entire office. Working independently with a desk is expected to be accomplished at home, making people only travel to work when in-person collaboration is necessary.

 

 

I don't understand, this implies that there would be reduced space which would be filled with seats. So rather than reducing density, occupancy is increased, given there's no point in having all this expanded seating area if people aren't using it at the same time. This is a health hazard.

If they were using seating arrangement in shifts , this would actually be called In and Out (next layout).

 

 

In and Out relies on rotating teams and imagines just a percentage of the company in the office. Desks and private tables with barriers fill the space.

 

which is pretty much what everyone is doing.

 

 

In the third model, more people are working outside of their homes but instead of being in a central office, they are at different locations. Called Community Nodes, the scheme envisions hubs that are closers to employees' apartments or houses.

 

Could anyone explain what the point of this is? You don't go to the central office but you're not working from home either. They say because of the reduced incentive to use public transport you would use a hub closer to home. Complete nonsense. Take London, where the average commute with public transport is over 1 hour, how would you expect to go into this hub when not using public transport? It would mean going on foot or on bicycle, so that even covering a small distance would take ages?

And this does not even account for the fact that in order to have a meeting with somebody, that somebody must be living roughly in the same area as me, otherwise the two people (or more) that need to meet would go in the hub that's closest to their home. Might as well go to the office then or have the Zoom meeting from home!

 

 

The final workplace, Collectives, features an open-plan office with clusters of places to work and take breaks. It most closely resembles offices and co-working spaces pre-coronavirus.

 

Brilliant. So it's just an office then.

 

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Nazart

@foundational, you made my day, I haven't stopped laughing since I read your post.

The sad fact is that they call themselves designers but they haven't done anything but come up with some fancy names....they are creating more issues than resolving them.

For example, why would you travel to a 'hub' that others may be using, and from the diagram is not set up for social distancing?  If you are going to travel for work, isn't it wiser to do so only for meetings or if you have a rota for when you are working in the office? 

So many questions arise from the article but nothing about the design issues have been looked into.

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Nazart

Innovation is what’s needed in this pandemic, how can we make new spaces that are easy to construct and sustainable. 

A modular self-build system is something that could be implemented to create more spaces for schools, quick easy housing and even smaller spaces within open plan areas.

The best thing about this is that you can build any size as it is made up of boxes and the only tools you need are a rubber hammer and a drill….what could be easier.

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alex

Thanks @nazart, this looks like an interesting idea. Just read a de zeen article about this and the modular system could indeed help, both for the short term needs to face this pandemic, but also as self-build solution. Nice post. 👍 

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Chris

Threefold Architects unveils a model for post-Covid co-working

https://www.dezeen.com/2021/02/01/paddington-works-threefold-architects-post-covid-co-working/

Months ago I posted about some well-meaning designers who otherwise produce useless interpretations of an idea that's supposed to be helpful. This is no exception. There is very little health and safety thinking to protect against Covid.

This looks like just an auditorium space. All the other office pics are no different.

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Jane
Posted by: @foundational

There is very little health and safety thinking to protect against Covid.

I think the whole wellness concept is good but the mistake was trying to adapt a piece which had little to do with the pandemic and tagging it with "post-Covid". In fact the plans are dated 2017. There's no social distancing reference in there, there was no pandemic.

 

I suspect this article was drafted years ago and revamped recently with Covid buzzwords. In fact they do say it was designed long before the pandemic.

 

Hmm..... puzzling!

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Nazart

This article is envoking a certain feeling in me.....how easily it is to twist ones perspective of a buildings function to suit a certain situation by using buzzwords to encourage more people to use it.

The only thing this building is really showing is carefully 'social distanced' people in certain spaces........with this concept all existing buildings could do the same, remove a few chairs to allow for social distancing, doesn't seem that difficult.....

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alex

Cross-referencing here this video from the Professional Development forum

 

AT Webinar with SIG - What is the future for hotel design after Covid?

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