After COVID-19, designers will need to incorporate time, as well as space, into their design considerations. Image courtesy of Figure courtesy of Flickr user Brandon Watts

In the current pandemic era, social distancing has become synonymous to maintaining “six foot distance” to contain the community spread of COVID-19. This essentially puts architectural space at a premium for both designers and the public. To mitigate these effects, could thinking of “time” as an essential design strategy benefit architecture in the era of social distancing?

Consider this restaurant case study documented by researchers at Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China, illustrating the community spread of COVID-19. On Jan 24, the index case-patient (patient A1) had lunch with 3 other family members (A2–A4) at the restaurant. Two other families, B and C, were seated at adjacent tables. Later that day, patient A1 experienced onset of fever and cough and visited the hospital. By February 5, a total of 9 customers (4 members of family A, 3 members of family B, and 2 members of family C) had become ill with COVID-19. The study concludes that the proximity of seating and the direction of AC airflow was critical in the virus spread. The distance between each table was measured to about 1 meter (much lesser than the prescribed six foot social distance). 

While the community spread effectively occurred because of a lack of spatial distance, one could also argue that the time was a critical factor. For instance, the study documents that families A and B were each seated for an overlapping period of 53 minutes, while families A and C for an overlapping period of 73 minutes. If the overlapping time was reduced, could the community spread have been mitigated? In other words, what implications does “time-sharing” of spaces have on architectural strategies of the future? Several large universities in the United States are already thinking of time-sharing classrooms as the lockdown eases in the Fall. Schools are also considering playgrounds as spaces for time sharing. Time-sharing not only allows social distancing, but also to rethink traditionally underutilized or unused spaces in a meaningful way.  

could thinking of “time” as an essential design strategy benefit architecture in the era of social distancing?

The question arises as how does one go about time-sharing of spaces in a more holistic way. This is when it is useful to invoke a mid-century concept prevalent in social science called “behavior settings.” First proposed by Roger Barker, a social scientist, it was later embraced in the disciplines of ecological and environmental psychology as an effective unit of analysis to study highly regulated human behaviors. Buildings such as schools, offices, churches and law courts exhibit such highly regulated behaviors. Behavior settings typically consist of a space-time locus (for example, in a typical school, learning behavior occurs in classrooms between 9AM and 5PM). In an ideal behavior setting “good fit” can be observed between the behavior and space termed by Barker as a “synomorph.” For example, in a school, the specific shape of the classrooms are synomorphic to the nature of class instruction and class size (blackboard orientation in relation to student and teachers). In other words there is an interdependency between shape, behavior, and time. This ecological unity is critical to the understanding of any behavior setting and perhaps developing strategies of time-sharing. 

What is further interesting in the concept of behavior settings is that numerous sets of behaviors can occur with the same users, or numerous users can occupy the same space. For example, in a school the same children could exhibit different behaviors based on whether they are engaged in focused study or play. Similarly, the same school could accommodate different levels and development levels without much change in its layout. The idea of behavior settings provides designers a vehicle to understand space, time and behavior, in a methodical and meaningful way so they could advocate for flexibility in function and activities. 

The next question is how we go about designing and investigating potential of synomorphic typologies. A couple of years ago, a striking image went viral on the internet that showed a church building accommodating homeless population asleep on the pews, and finding sanctuary in the nave. This program at St. Boniface church in San Francisco was part of the Gubbio Project, which provides blankets, hygiene kits, and socks to around 150 people who rest in the church each weekday. It made sense to utilize a faith based worship space, whose mission is to care for the marginalized, to make such an accommodation to an unexpected user. While this rare case of synomorphy was identified by church leaders, often the social taboo, hygiene and safety concerns makes it difficult for such conversions and accommodations to materialize. One could imagine the further challenges of hygiene that arises in the COVID-19 era. 

there is an interdependency between shape, behavior, and time

The COVID-19 era, has however, expedited the need for adaptive reuse, and flung the design community to think of spaces in creative ways. Adaptive reuse, the process of reusing an existing building for a purpose other than which it was originally built or designed for, is becoming ever so critical. 

In this era, one interesting example of synomorphy could be recognizable in the “Hotel to Healthcare Concept,” proposed by theUS Army Corps of Engineers. According to this proposal, hotel rooms and dorms with their own air conditioning units can be converted into negative pressure rooms. As shown in the image special medical equipment could be retrofitted to hotel rooms with adequate electrical and mechanical systems to convert them into hospital rooms. 

In the same direction, Dallas-based architecture firm HKS has embarked on an ambitious project to convert hotels into hospitals in a duration of 10 days. HKS observes that full-service hotels work well for conversions to hospitals because they already have infrastructure such as laundry and food-service in place. Under the HKS plan, ballrooms become patient wards for those with worsening conditions needing more real-time specialized care. Guest rooms become patient rooms, nursing stations, storage and staff sleeping areas. Hotel lobbies and check-in areas turn into triage, assessment, intake and registration areas. Conference rooms and large meeting areas are used for central medication supply, central point-of-care testing, central materials supply, administrative support and nursing support for huddles and shift changes. However, HKS architects understand the limitations and challenges that come with such conversion. First, the need for sanitation and disinfection of space and second, overcoming stigma and the compensation that needs to occur after such conversion is made.  

Much like the hotel and healthcare synomorphy, other typologies could be good candidates for adaptive reuse. We have already witnessed the conversion of large sports complexes into hospitals in and potential “surge sites” for  COVID-19 patients. Sports stadiums have also been considered as rapidly deployable testing sites in Florida and elsewhere. The demand for adaptive reuse provides us an opportunity to rethink how we have traditionally used and designed public spaces. For example, some years ago, I noticed older adults in a New Jersey mall using hallways at early morning hours to conduct walking exercises and keep active. While malls can be considered “dead spaces” while not in use, such creative use of space for active living renders it more inclusive and efficient. It also allows private owners to do their bit for the community. We could think of other examples of adaptive reuse such as public libraries transforming into vocational training centers, or court houses becoming community centers during weekends.  

Stewart Brand, in his book, How Buildings Learn discusses the need for “loose fit” in designing buildings, so that unexpected uses of the building could be accommodated. In other words, designers need to err in “over size” rather than “under size.” Indeed, there are challenges in open-ended and multifunctional spaces that could also lead to ambiguity and confusion among users and patrons on how the space should be utilized. However, the COVID-19 era will force designers to create such spaces to be used in case of emergency relief. 

The demand for adaptive reuse provides us an opportunity to rethink how we have traditionally used and designed public spaces. 

The demand for flexibility of programs in our architectural projects is not new and has been discussed throughout architectural history, and perhaps need to be revisited. A good example is the Dutch structuralist movement of the 1960’s, where architecture was considered not having any predetermined programs, but left room for users to interact in their own way. One of the figureheads of the movement, Aldo Van Eyck, rejected rigid functionalism. His empirical research of indigenous Dogon settlements of Africa, made him realize the value for flexible and interchangeable spatial units rather than the prevailing modernist language of composition and monumentality. The so-called “mat-buildings” found in the settlements could be characterized by the use of modules as components in a larger coherent whole, capable of accommodating changing functions, with special attention given to transitions between outside and inside, encounters, identity, livability, flexibility, and extensibility. This afforded the architect a controlled framework in which others retained a freedom to develop user-friendly forms.  

Recently, the celebrated architect Patrik Schumacher has embarked on reinventing parametric architecture to accommodate multiple functions using agent based modelling. Schumacher advocates designers to speculate about the social meaning of forms that could accommodate multiple functions over time such as a lecture theater morphing gradually into a lounging area. Using crowd simulation techniques to predict emergent behavior, Schumacher maps the patterns of movement, occupation and interaction that could be programmed in real buildings when each scenarios is desired using artificial intelligence.

In the pandemic era, society demands of designers to think of future buildings in terms of environmental affordances that are functionally possible, psychologically perceptible, and make inclusive use of underutilized spaces through creative time-sharing.  

Ultimately, any building that needs to accommodate multiple functions has to be intelligible and done with relatively little effort. There is a saying in architectural circles that buildings are the only large machines that come without an instruction manual. As designers we not only need to make spaces multifunctional and flexible but also make it intuitive for users to understand that these functions are possible. American psychologist JJ Gibson’s use of environmental affordances is important to note here. Gibson’s affordance theory, suggests that affordances are not just functional in nature but also psychological as the clues in the environment indicate possibilities for action. For example, objects consist of innate affordances that are intuitively absorbed by the function they promise – such as handles for pulling, levers for sliding, etc. In other words, perception drives action. In the pandemic era, society demands of designers to think of future buildings in terms of environmental affordances that are functionally possible, psychologically perceptible, and make inclusive use of underutilized spaces through creative time-sharing.