What will be the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the built environment? Of course, anything can happen and we should be skeptical of anyone offering predictions for what even tomorrow might bring, but that has not stopped architectural thinkers from positing the world as it might come to be. 

A case in point, two dueling perspectives were recently published that offer differing visions of how our cities, daily lives, and homes might change in response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Writing in The Los Angeles Times, author and architecture critic Sam Lubell highlights six aspects of daily life—modular construction, adaptive reuse, lightweight architecture, healthy buildings, work, and public spaces—that are likely to be impacted by the crisis. 

Among the least discussed arenas so far that might find new relevance amid the COVID-19 crisis, according to Lubell, is modular construction.  As the complicated rollout of social distancing initiatives has shown, the current crisis has laid bare the need for “quick creation of emergency facilities like hospitals, quarantine centers, testing sites, and temporary lodgings,” facilities that, due to their standardized and tightly regulated configurations might lend themselves readily to prefabrication.

“The time to reassess our built world is now, not after the next catastrophe. What if we more effectively employed modular building tools not just to face pandemics or natural disasters, but also to create less costly, more quickly built buildings in general, from pop-up shops to affordable housing?,” Lubell writes. 

A contrasting article published in The Economist, however, while noting that past pandemics have in fact deeply impacted the look, feel, and legal strictures of cities around the globe, the current pandemic, if it is short-lived and successfully handled, might leave less permanent changes. 

Citing some of the research conducted by Princeton School of Architecture Professor Beatriz Colomina’s recent book X-Ray Architecture, the article highlights the surprisingly omnipresent role hygiene, disease prevention, and a desire for good health has had both on architecture, specifically, but also on cities, more generally. Despite this legacy, however, the article approaches the ability of the current pandemic to permanently change the built environment with a grain of salt: “In the first country it attacked, some urban adaptations have already been undone. In China many apartment blocks acquired shelves where delivery drivers could leave food and other goods. Almost as soon as the lockdowns lifted, they were taken down.“

So, what will it be? Deep, fundamental change or a temporary shift to be replaced with a quick return to “normal?”