REFLECTIONS OF EVA REINA AND EMAD FIKRY ON HOUSE IN TIMES OF COVID-19. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE.
REFLECTIONS ON HOUSE IN TIMES OF COVID-19. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE.
Although residential design has never stopped roaming the head of us as an architects, now more than ever with the global situation that has happened, we have left our multiplying inertias when we see ourselves secluded in our homes to think about how our home has become a true refuge or not for us.
A social, plural, relational “we”, made up of a multitude of real and virtual interactions, specially real and that in recent times has been relegated -in a multitude of cases- to become “I”. For the first time, we have empathized with people who live alone.
Here begins a series of reflections that we will present in different posts over time.
ME AND MY HOUSE.
The meaning of house is a protected place or construction conditioned for people to live. Before the covid, many the population asked as indispensable, which for many remains an extra, have a good internet connection. But in our industrialized countries, we no longer conceive our homes without Netflix or Play Station. Imagine just for a moment our confinements without internet … Now let’s do an exercise in humility and think about the number of people who do not have internet access in their homes and if, in addition, we add to this who are living alone and don’t be able to go outside, the situation becomes almost unbearable. That is the situation that many of our elders are going through these days, many of whom even have mobility problems. If by definition the house is the construction conditioned for people to live, that life seems logical to think that it should be developed with a minimum of dignity and guaranteed comforts.
There are many initiatives that have been launched during this quarantine to contrast the realities of the population through informal surveys that give us an idea of how people live and what are the main shortcoming they are experiencing in their homes. So, by way of questions or thematic reflections, we will get closer to this polyhedral reality in the next different posts. By making problems visible in some and betting on solutions in others, we hope to contribute with our reflections weekly.
What are the main deficiencies of the houses in our environment?
Are our homes flexible and resilient?
How have people prepared for confinement?
What are the most values of our homes that this confinement have provided us?
Does this exceptional situation constitute an unprecedented opportunity to produce short-term changes in our homes?
Given the lack of social life around us that many of us have experienced, would co-living constitute a possible solution and in what way?
What regulations or institutional policy changes could emerge as an opportunity after this pandemic?
These and all the questions that appear to us along the way will be the questions that constitute our “reflections on housing in Covid’s time”