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MVRDV has offered an insight into their recently-completed interior redesign for Shopify in Berlin. The 1,000-square-meter (10,700-square-foot) renovation began before the COVID-19 pandemic but was heavily altered mid-construction to respond to post-pandemic work trends. Photograph © Daria... View full entry
Architecture firms are billing more from reconstruction and renovation projects than they are from new builds for the first time; a milestone driven by soaring demand for office renovations. In the 20 years that the AIA has been collecting data on billings for renovations versus new build... View full entry
Following almost two years of work-from-home orders, businesses and governments are seeking to bring employees back to traditional workplaces. While working from home will continue to form part of many businesses’ employment structures in the long term, a separate question lingers over... View full entry
Burger King has unveiled new restaurant designs that are due to better serve customers in a COVID-19 world. With a focus on mobile ordering and curbside pick-up, the new designs embrace a new way of serving visitors by offering drive-in and walk-up order areas, curbside pick-up areas, an enhanced... View full entry
The pandemic is expected to drastically reshape commercial real estate, leaving thousands of vacant and underused spaces nationwide. But some developers and investors are keen to seize the chance to convert those properties into other uses. — The New York Times
Tom Acitelli of The New York Times investigates some of the ways in which office and commercial spaces may be rethought in coming years as conversions from previous uses facilitate a massive transformation within the American built environment on a scale that is largely without precedent. In... View full entry
The latest building adaptation report from the American Institute of Architect (AIA) highlights steps that building owners and designers can take to retrofit existing multi-family homes for pandemic occupation. Following recently published guides for schools, offices, and hospitals, AIA has issued... View full entry
In the months since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived across the world, much attention has been placed on how easy it is for the virus to spread in indoor spaces that lack proper ventilation. Writing in the academic journal The Conversation, Shelly Miller, professor of mechanical... View full entry
Mass Design Group has published its latest COVID-19 guide aimed at retrofitting and upgrading existing senior living facilities to minimize pandemic transmission. The Designing Senior Housing for Safe Interaction; The Role of Architecture in Fighting COVID-19 guide follows a strategy document... View full entry
Conventions and trade shows are now wrestling with the same challenges facing schools, religious groups, and professional sports. Whenever large numbers of people gather indoors, in tightly enclosed spaces with mechanical air circulation, odds are that spikes in coronavirus infections will follow. — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Inga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, probes some of the existential questions facing large urban convention centers, massive facilities that have had their spatial and economic potentials deeply challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Saffron reports on efforts to... View full entry
The slow and steady death of the shopping mall has been sped up since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now several months into the public health and economic crisis the pandemic has set off, mall owners and operators are developing specific visions for the post-mall future of American... View full entry
As commercial and office real estate markets continue to be upended by societal shifts touched off by the COVID-19 pandemic, some economists are looking to these now under-utilized spaces as potential avenues for bringing additional housing supplies online in American cities. Previously on... View full entry
San Francisco based architects Kuth Ranieri Architects have unveiled a speculative proposal that aims to retrofit existing and underutilized office building clusters into mini-neighborhoods containing many of the daily necessities for residents of a post-pandemic city. The firm's Post-Pandemic... View full entry
The ghost kitchen is an increasingly crowded space. In addition to Reef, there are Zuul and Kitchen United in the United States, Deliveroo in London and Paris, and Panda Selected in China. CloudKitchens, the new venture run by Travis Kalanick’s City Storage Systems, buys real estate, brings in kitchen facilities, and leases them to chefs and small-business owners, most of whom do not have other brick-and-mortar spaces. — The New Yorker
Anna Wiener, a contributing writer to The New Yorker, surveys the landscape of delivery- and takeout-only "ghost kitchens" that have taken root in American cities following the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing in on kitchen pod start up company Reef Technology. View full entry
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has unveiled its latest set of design adaptation strategies aimed at retrofitting existing buildings for post-pandemic use. The latest guide, following up on strategies for schools, commercial facilities, and other spaces, is geared specifically for... View full entry
Rather than respond with temporary barriers or signs, [Joel] Sanders is trying to use MIX’s research process to arrive at designs that minimize the spread of the coronavirus and appeal to diverse users. This, he hopes, will result in buildings that endure, whether or not a vaccine becomes available. — T Magazine
Writing in The New York Times Magazine, journalist Kim Tingley takes a long look at the ways in which the design of everyday and communal spaces might shift to become more universally accessible following the COVID-19 pandemic. The article engages with emerging design ideas resulting from... View full entry
