The COVID-19 crisis has forced corporate culture to radically adjust ways of working. The question facing us now is what will happen when the pandemic winds down and we emerge from quarantines?
What’s likely is that awareness about workplace health and safety will be strong, and this awareness will have a direct impact on the design of physical environments, most notably, the surfaces we touch and how we interact with people after this prolonged period of social distancing.
In the wake of the pandemic, the connection between the physical environment and wellness will be under more scrutiny than ever before. Questions will be asked, like: is the air in this building filtered? Are there proper hand-washing facilities? How many surfaces do I need to touch and how clean are they? Will meeting rooms be replaced with video-conferencing rooms?
While open office designs will likely no longer be desirable, for most companies, a complete redesign is not realistic either. Which means post-pandemic, we’ll be challenged to rethink how we behave, utilize and design traditional workspaces.
In this episode of Bevel, we explore these issues further with Dyonne Fashina, principal of the Toronto-based award-winning firm Denizens of Design.