(PANDEMIC ISSUE)

(PANDEMIC ISSUE)

ISSN 2611-3872

N.4 DEC 2020

EDITOR IN CHIEF Arch. Maria Maddalena Margaria

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:Prof. Valeria Minucciani - POLYTECHNIC OF TURIN

Dr. Katelijn Quartier - UNIVERSITY OF HASSELT

Prof. Francesca Murialdo - MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY

Prof. Penny Sparke - KINGSTON UNIVERSITY

Prof. Elena Dellapiana - POLITECNICO DI TORINO

Prof. Ricardo Guasch Ceballos - ELISAVA

Prof. Graeme Brooker - RCA LONDON

Prof. Els de Vos - ANTWERPEN UNIVERSITY

WWW.INNEMAGAZINE.ORG

COVER AND DESIGN: DARIOBOVERO.IT

LIVING IN A PANDEMIC STATE:

HOW INTERIORS FACE TO ISOLATION

(PANDEMIC ISSUE)

HOME OR ‘PANOPTIC’ SPACE OF WORKWRITTEN BY Pierluigi Panza, Faculty Design Sciences, University Antwerp

UTILIZING DESIGN CREATIVITY TO PROTECT AND CONNECT IN PANDEMIC TIMESWRITTEN BY Ashlyn Powers Assoc. AIA, Assoc. IIDAPipa Bradbury ASID, NCIDQ, Illinois Registered Interior Designer #161.003564

PANDEMIC AND POST PANDEMIC. THE ANNUS HORRIBILIS AND THE DISCIPLINARY RE-CONSTITUTIONWRITTEN BY Pier Federico Caliari

POST PANDEMIC INTERIORS - THE DESIGN INTERNS’ VISTAWRITTEN BY Mani Makhija Student of IV year of Architecture of School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India

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Index

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SPECTRUM OF SPATIAL MANIFESTATIONS IN HOMES, DURING A PANDEMICAUTHOR: Deepiga Kameswaran Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Dr.MGR Educational & Research Institute Chennai.

CO AUTHOR: Anil Ravindranathan Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Dr. MGR Educational & Research Institute Chennai.

HEALTHIER LIVING SPACES ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN AND SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONWRITTEN BY Clelia Maria Bonardi Dott.ssa in Architecture

THE CHANGE IN INTERIOR SPACE AND THE CONCEPT OF WELL-BEING IN RELATION TO THE NEW CORONAVIRUSWRITTEN BY Nilufer Saglar Onay

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HOME

OR ‘PANOPTIC’ SPACE OF WORK

WRITTEN BY

Pierluigi Panza Faculty Design Sciences,

University Antwerp

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Abstract

T he timing of the renewal of labour strategies in the global market is too rapid for private housing, if it has a future, to adapt to it every time. Instead, housing - as stabilised in its various forms

since the advent of the Agricultural Society onwards - can be rethought starting from certain variables in the world of production that appear less unstable:

• The partial downsizing of the sharing policies that seemed unstoppable;

• The survival of smart-working because it allows a downsizing of busi-ness spaces, that is, a saving;

• The introduction of new forms of control of work, worker and individual through telematics and polysystem tools.

How can these guidelines affect Walter Benjamin’s “old” idea of home as the home of the individual? How do we support them and in which way can we counteract them by exposing their regressive aspects? Certainly, this scenario will impact at least on three levels: the physical one (use of spaces and planning adaptations), the psychological one (how to involve other people in the house or exclude them, how to support our psycholo-gical resources) and relational (how to welcome any guests, how to im-prove the technologies “to see each other”). What we want to study here from a theoretical point of view is, above all, the third variable, that is the impact that monitoring, control and production systems can have in a home.

For the theoretical reflection on architecture, however, what matters is to carry out a critical act of “warning” against these additional transfor-mations. We can assume that in the post-pandemic phase, productive ca-pitalism will seek to take over, progressively and surreptitiously, private housing as a new place of work, control of the individual and production. And so will do central control systems, such as medical or financial ones.

Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984)

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Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984)

Introduction - from contamination in the office to smart working at home

M arissa Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO, in February 2013 rejected the implementation of work-from-home models by forcing em-

ployees to work at Silicon Valley offices. A note sent to all employees read: “To become the best place ever to work, communication and collaboration will be im-portant, so we need to work side by side. That’s why it’s crucial that we’re all in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from discussions held in the hallways and cafeteria, from meeting new people, and from impromptu team meetings”1

But these solutions based on “contamination”, which

1. A.GATTARA and F.GUIDI, Empatia degli spazi, “Position Paper”, n.11, Milano, ottobre 2013.

are also being tested Italy with job-sharing or agi-le work solutions, have been completely called into question by Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Forced into sud-den lockdown, the new passwords of the labor orga-nizers have changed, becoming “home-working” and “remote”.

In fact, three types of workers are emerging. The “Mobile worker” is a worker who does not have a desk and can use common space in a site: for this worker his own home remains a safe haven. The se-cond type of worker is the homeworker and he wor-ks exclusively from home. The homeworker must submit to the company the documents of his home (floor plan, certificates of habitability and plant com-pliance) which are examined by the company’s HSE function. This also carries out an inspection of the home to determine if it is suitable for homeworking and to choose the workstation position in a room.

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The company also provides the homeworker with furniture and ICT equipment, consisting of an ergo-nomic chair, a desk and hires technicians to install a Wi-Fi system in the home: it is clear that this type of work profoundly affects the home, which is “sha-red” with the company. The Smart worker can carry out his work not only from home, like the homewor-ker, but from any non-public place with private WiFi: also in this case his activity can affect the use of the home.

In his article entitled We’re not going back to nor-mal published in “MIT Technology Review”, Gideon Lichfield recalled how many of the practices that broke into the lockdown “won’t go back to normal in a few weeks, or even a few months. Some thin-gs never will”2. These include smart working, (and, obviously, homeworking), which promotes business savings and has been accepted or appreciated by em-ployees, perhaps also for induced reasons, which is not the case to discuss here. As evidence of this, we report the data of a survey conducted by the Digital Transformation Agency of Lombardy3 on a sample of 6,500 workers (55% in the public sector and 45% in the private sector). 51% of those who had already tried smart working said they were “more producti-ve” while among new smart workers 57% said they were less productive. However, 94% of respondents said they were ready to continue with “working from home”. The impact of smart working on workplace and domestic affairs emerged from the questionnai-re: 43% of workers in the private sector and 37% of the public sector stated that “separating work and leisure” was one of the difficulties. Smart working is putting worker, home and work in a fluid condition.4 This condition of work and domestic use of the apart-ment on the one hand highlights a better well-being for the lower stress recorded (52% of workers without children and 45% of those with children say they are “less stressed”) but, on the other hand, the intrusion of the home office revolutionizes its statutes and also becomes a form of remote control of the home space of the worker.5

This paper aims to show how these new guidelines taken in the field of work with the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. affect Walter Benjamin’s “old” idea of home as the home of the individual.6

Certainly, this scenario will impact at least on three levels: the physical one (use of spaces and

2. G.LICHFIELD, “We’re not going back to normal”, (“MIT Technology Review”, 17 March 2020) 3. https://www.trasformazionedigitale.regione.lombardia.it/wps/portal/site/trasformazionedigitale/trasformazione-digitale-in-lombardia4. Z.BAUMANN, Work, consumerism and the new poor, Open University Press, Berkshire, England-New York, 2005, Italian transl. Lavoro, consumismo e nuove povertà, Città aperta, Troina, 2005.5. Z.BAUMANN, Liquid surveillance. A conversation, with D.Lyon, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2013. Sesto potere.Trad.it., La sorveglianza nella modernità liquida, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2013.6. W. BENJAMIN, Raum für das Kostbare, in Gesammelte Schriften, curated by R. Tiedemann and H. Schweppenhäuser, vol. IV, part I, curated by T. Rexroth, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1972. Italian transl. Il ritorno del flâneur, in Ombre corte. Scritti 1928-1929, curated by G. Agamben, Einaudi, Torino 1993, pp. 468-473.

planning adaptations), the psychological one (how to involve other people in the house or exclude them, how to support our psychological resources) and relational (how to welcome any guests, how to improve the technologies “to see each other”). This study also intends to carry out a critical operation, to “warn” about the third of these aspects, which involves the issue of control over the individual after the irruption of the office into the domestic space. The goal is to show how to design an interior will henceforth have to deal (also disciplinarily) with regulatory systems not only architectural, but which concern the world of work and digital and privacy regulations.

Theme - a panottic house: do they look at me at home?

The new forms of home-working and “social spa-ce” will lead, from the point of view of territorial distribution, to a rediscovery of the countrysi-de and to an occupation of spaces that were less used and therefore considered safer (contrarily to what previously thought), favoring a demographic sprawl.

With regard to large housing sizes and types, apart from a rediscovery - almost nostalgic - of premises that had been deleted (entrance, corri-dor, ...), it is incomplete to speak only in terms of square meters or equipment tools. It is not a matter of thinking only about how to create a new open-space or not, technologically connected and functional, healthy and, perhaps, located inside a building or a residential complex with collective sanitary facilities.

In the post-pandemic phase, productive capitali-sm will seek to take over, progressively and sur-reptitiously, private housing as a new place of work, control of the individual and production. So will do central control systems, such as medical or finan-cial ones. On this one must be “on guard”.

Philosophy had already dealt with this theme of the end of private space, in one case by linking it to the overcoming of the idea of habitation in capitalist so-

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ciety, in the second, the opposite, warning of the sur-veillance that power exercises through architecture.

The philosopher of the Frankfurt School Theodor W. Adorno had entrusted the idea of going beyond the domestic space to an aphorism of Minima moralia. The homes designed today, Adorno wrote, “brutally contrast with each aspiration towards an indepen-dent existence”. From this it follows that “living is no longer practically possible ... The house has disap-peared.” In this sense, the advent of smart-working would only forcefully confirm this “prophecy” of the sunset of the need for a domestic and private space. “It is part of my luck, wrote Nietzsche in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft- concludes Adorno - not to own a house. And today it should be added: it is part of the moral to never feel at home”.7

But since domestic space does not appear on the point of being liberally abandoned, but “invaded” by others, here philosophy has already brought attention to the theme of the individual observed in “his” space wi-thout being seen, or observed in a space that becomes panoptic - which was once only that of prison as desi-gned by Jeremy Bentham but which now risks to beco-me the domestic one. The theme had been addressed by the French post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault in 1975 in his essay Surveiller et punir: Nais-sance de la prison.8 Since the seventeenth century, the individual body, states Foucault, has entered a gear of power, in a “normative mechanics” that defines spaces and distances for docile or subjugated bodies. Foucault dedicates the third part of his work to the advent and deployment of a “political anatomy” that organizes the discipline bodies by subtracting them from their “scattered localization”,9governing their proxemics in prisons, on ships, in schools , inside the churches ... through a “corpus of modern procedures”. This discipline “sometimes requires seclusion, the specification of a place heterogeneous with respect to all the others and closed in on itself”.10 This cloiste-red and hospital-like space was experienced precisely during the infections and in all these cases, “medi-cal surveillance” was accompanied by “a whole other series of checks”. We too have now experienced this “closed in” place that was imposed on us by the pre-sence of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This place has been a private and at the same time widespread place: our homes. The private place par excellence has suddenly become the place of collective confinement, the spa-

7. T. W. ADORNO, Minima moralia. Meditazioni della vita offesa, Einaudi, Torino 1954. See also D. Pisani, Per una apocalissi dialettica, engramma, n. 84, ottobre, 2010, open access ISSN 1826-901X.8. M.FOUCAULT, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, Paris, 1975. Italian transl., Sorvegliare e punire, Torino, 1976.9. Ibid. pp.147 ss.10. Ibid., p.15411. T.W.ADORNO and M.HORKHEIMER, Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente, Amsterdam, 1947. Italian Transl. Dia-lettica dell’Illuminismo, Torino, 1966.12. Di S.ZUBOFF see also: The Support Economy: Why Corporations Failing Individuals e Next Episode of Capitalism.

ce within which surveillance takes place. So, after this “experimentation”, the possibility that the sum of all private homes is the place of an uninterrupted cloister for “docile bodies” and subjected by the world of work appears a marked step. From the lockdown onwards, the cameras will no longer observe who is out in the surrounding area, but if you go out. From the lockdown onwards, the smart-worker and his own home are constantly observed by the digital eye. The system has turned upside down: the private has become what is observed anonymously, panoptically.

Before putting forward some traces of normative sug-gestions that regulate this ongoing intrusion, but it is a question, at least, of unmasking the false freedom that lies behind the opportunities for simplification, flexibility, various advantages that it evokes to sup-port the silent transformation of “one’s” private spa-ce into a place of “collective” work. Adorno and Hor-kheimer, in the Dialectic of the Enlightenment11 have demonstrated the advent of counterpraxis which is inherent in every modern liberation process. Their thesis, as is known, is that the Enlightenment advo-cated the self-determination of individuals but ended up imposing a form of rational, and, now, technolo-gical, organization capable of anesthetizing and neu-tralizing the freedom of the subject. Today, in a book like The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by the American sociologist Shoshana Zuboff 12, these issues are re-emerging, linked to the digital revolution and to the new conditions of human development. Zuboff developed the concepts of “surveillance capitalism”, “instrumental power”, “means of behavior modifica-tion “. The house modeled as a workplace, acquisi-tion of goods and consumption as well as place of rest from work, subjected to a surveillance control that takes place through the telematic recording carried out by the tools provided (PCs, cameras, smart appliances, wi-fi, apps, geolocation proxi-mity, meeting recording) reveals the counterpraxis face of the new panoptic freedom. That is, a free-dom that puts individuals once again in the condi-tion of being monitored “at home” without knowing by whom and when.

This silent “expropriation” of private space marks, in a certain sense, the triumph of the ethics of Capi-talism in its first religious aspiration, typical of Pro-testantism and Calvinism. In Christian Directory,

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the Puritan preacher Richard Baxter already listed what were the real condemnations for the capita-list and which Max Weber identifies as typical of capitalism: the reclining, the enjoyment, the waste of time, the domestic “idle talk”, the sleep that may only be what is needed to resume production. So much so that Benjamin Franklin summarized this thought in the famous slogan “time is money”.13

Therefore, the apartment which has become a wor-kplace for disciplined bodies where “time is money”, risks to be transformed into the place of action of a panoptic system of control also of the enjoyment and of the loss of domestic time, and even of sleep.

Conclusions - Rules and not only “interior design”

If we do not think that the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is the instrument through which Adorno’s “prophecy” on the overcoming of domestic space is forcibly ful-filled, in a scenario like this the intervention that a discipline such as interior architecture can carry out is that of a post-discipline. The architect - on a large scale - will at best be part of a design team made up of neuroscientists, occupational doctors, psychologists, sustainability managers, developers and engineers. In this process, the architect will take on the task now called “workspace planner” and, inside the home, that of “interior designer”.

Though there is a proxemics of intimacy too com-plex and individual, different from civilization to civilization, to be rigidly regulated or to open the way to neo-rationalist adventures, architectural re-presentatives must become part of the elaboration of new regulatory systems in the field of domestic work. I believe this legislation is to be thought of in non-traditional and de-bureaucratization terms. I believe that living+working legislation must invol-ve new figures and take into account some aspects:

-An anti-panoptic function must be ensured inside the home: I can only be seen if I see you, that is, I can be seen and controlled only if and when I allow it; therefore computer systems and homes must provide total shielding;

13. M.WEBER, Die Protestantische Ethok und der Geist., Italian transl. L’Etica protestante e lo spirito del Capitalismo, Milano, Rizzoli, 2010, pp.128-12914. See also H.F.MULLGRAVE in particular chap.4 “Experiencing architecture”, in H.F.MULLGRAVE, Architecture and embodiment, Routledge, London. New York, 2013.15. Implemented with Legislative Decree 18 May 2018, n.65, published in the Official Gazette n. 132 of 9 June 2018 which entered into force on 24 June 2018)16. Law Decree 22 June 2012 n. 83 (so-called “Development Decree”) converted into law 7 August 2012 n. 134

-Public support is required for general maintenance of homes and their technological adaptation;

-it is necessary to promote tools for the develop-ment of new health-related neighborhood infra-structures, for work, for psycho-physical well-being and for active green;

- the condo administrator will become a service manager who must ensure the IT and health ma-nagement of the home

The interior spaces will no longer be designable in terms of rooms, if not recovering the typologies that have been suppressed (the hallway that becomes a dirty / clean transition space) but with accessory functions, such as renewal of infrastructure equip-ment of the apartment, especially old, and new air sanitization systems, or such as aesthetic functions determined by healthiness, views and solutions that also respond to the logic of Neuroaesthetics (even digital art will be able to become part of the digital-video platform that will provide the apart-ments as a luxury aesthetic function).14

In the first place, however, it is necessary that stra-tegic lines be taken to protect the home. Companies that introduce smart-working must have entered into agreements at central level with the Postal Police and National CERTs. CERTs are organizations, generally supported by universities or government agencies, responsible for collecting reports of cyber incidents, vulnerabilities and intrusion into software that come from users. Therefore, the regulations provided by the Privacy Guarantor in the EU Regulation 2016/679 will be integrated to protect the domestic space - hence the obligation to install a background screen that ma-kes the home space invisible remotely, for example. Otherwise, remote work would also end up functio-ning as a video surveillance system. The congruity of the workspace with safety standards must be entru-sted to third agencies and certified to protect choices in the domestic space. Companies must respond in terms of Governance, Privacy and CyberSecurity to the NIS directive 2016/1148 (Network and Information Security) approved in 2016 aimed at establishing the measures for creating a safe and reliable digital envi-ronment in Europe.15 Finally, these problems should also enter the field of observation of the Italian Agen-cy for digitalization established with the Mario Monti Government16, which has the task of issuing guideli-nes and standard regulations.

UTILIZING DESIGN CREATIVITY TO PROTECT AND CONNECT IN

PANDEMIC TIMES

WRITTEN BY

Ashlyn Powers Assoc. AIA, Assoc. IIDA

Pipa BradburyASID, NCIDQ, Illinois Registered

Interior Designer #161.003564

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September 14, 2020

I magine, one year ago, how would you begin a design? Most might have started with a few conceptual goals. Communal. Vibrant. Commu-

nity Feel. Open Floor Plan just to name a few. Com-munal and community feel seemed to be a trending design goal for almost every project type, from re-staurants to workspaces, a sense of connection was always key to a successful concept. A year ago, the connection was a physical one. In today’s times, is it fair that we depend on yesteryears goals of this physi-cal connection and only adapt these designs? We have been dealt a hand that no one wants, but it is here to stay and the design community can decide to fold or adapt and utilize concepts that transform spaces into safe and dynamic escapes from isolation.

Proxemics is the “study of the nature, degree, and effect of the spatial separation individuals naturally maintain and how this separation relates to the en-vironmental and cultural factors”.1 Edward T. Hall is credited to be the pioneer in the field of proxemics and in 1968 established guidelines that have been referen-ced for interior design since its conception. He crea-ted four categories and established distances (in feet) that were preferred for such activity to occur. Intimate (less than one foot), Personal (two feet to four feet), Social (four feet to ten feet), and Public (ten feet and beyond).2 Fifty-two years later, the study of proxemics now has been turned upside down with the Center for Disease Control guidelines taking its place (figure 1)

Seventy-two inches, six feet. This is now the bare mi-nimum CDC suggested distance in any social situa-tion.3 How do we as designers allot for this? Many restaurants have taken immediate action by taping off every other chair to prohibit close interaction. In places that used to serve as escapes, people are now

1 “Proxemics.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Accessed May 13, 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proxemics.

2 Hall, Edward T., Ray L. Birdwhistell, Bernhard Bock, Paul Bohannan, A. Richard Diebold, Marshall Durbin, Munro S. Edmonson, J. L. Fischer, Dell Hymes, Solon T. Kimball, Weston La Barre, Frank Lynch, S. J., J. E. McClellan, Donald S. Marshall, G. B. Milner, Harvey B. Sarles, George L Trager, and Andrew P. Vayda. “Proxemics [and Comments and Replies].” Current Anthropology 9, no. 2/3 (1968): 83-108. Accessed May 13, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/2740724.

3 “How to Protect Yourself & Others.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 24, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

met with restrictive signage, roped off areas, and ru-les for how to exist safely within spaces. A great way to make people feel unsafe is to tell them how to be safe within a space they currently are occupying. The-se restrictions are in place because our previously de-signed spaces were not designed to adapt and now are a stark monument to how the world used to be. Let us not tell people how to be safe within a space, let us create safe spaces.

If this design “solution” of isolation and forceful se-paration continues, the pandemic mindset will never end and isolation will be the new normal. Every hu-man on this planet is striving for connection, so yes let us use the guidelines as set forth by the scienti-sts and doctors as a minimum physical distance but change the way we design by exploring different ways to connect. By developing how we design for these changes, we do not need to depend on special finishes or strictly sterile environments; instead, we meet the-se challenges head on and create artful experiences out of these restrictions.

Centralized features can be used as visual and audi-tory gatherings that connect those around it through the common experience. For instance, a simple verti-cal stream of water falling within the center of a spa-ce creates a serene sound that reverberates and reso-nates throughout and within a large area. This sound can travel around high-backed furnishings, partial height partitions, and sectioned seating. Even though you are physically within smaller groupings, every oc-cupant is sharing a connection through sound.

This connection through common experience of water has more than just the benefit of providing a sound connection, “The presence of water has been proven to lead to reduced stress, increased feelings of tranquility, lower heart rate and blood pressure, and

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recovered skin conductance” 4. Water reminds occu-pants of the natural world within the built environ-ment and has been proven to reduce stress, “auditory access and perceived or potential tactile access to wa-ter reduced stress in participants; and by Barton and Pretty (2010), who concluded that activities conducted in green spaces with the presence of water generated greater improvements in both self-esteem and mood than green environments without the presence of wa-ter.” 5 (figure 2)

Visually, the association can be achieved by centrali-zed lighting sculptures, groupings of similar lighting fixtures, or common light levels within certain are-as. Light has the power to create emotions, to make colors and intensity change before your eyes, and to direct your attention purposefully. Mixing in mirrors strategically placed with lighting can create a sense of mystery as well as cleverly providing fun unexpected visual connections. A sense of mystery is “a spatial condition characterized by the promise of more infor-mation manifested by the presence of partially obscu-red views or other sensory stimuli that fascinate and entice the individual to travel deeper into the environ-ment” 6.

In opposition of creating mystery, another impor-tant need in interior design is to create a sense of understanding 7, occupants need to be aware of their surroundings. This need for understanding can also facilitate another visual connection by creating unblocked views throughout the space. A few ways to accomplish this, as illustrated below, include: Provide minimum focal lengths of ≥20 feet (6 meters), prefe-

4 Ryan, Catherine, William Browning, Joseph Clancy, Scott Andrews, and Namita Kallianpurkar. 2014. “BIOPHILIC DESIGN PATTERNS Emer-ging Nature-Based Parameters for Health and Well-Being in the Built Environment.” Archnet-IJAR International Journal of Architectural Research , no. Volume 8 Issue 2 (July): 62–76. https://earthwise.education/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Biophilicdesign-patterns.



7 Ryan, Catherine, William Browning, Joseph Clancy, Scott Andrews, and Namita Kallianpurkar. 2014. “BIOPHILIC DESIGN PATTERNS Emerging Nature-Based Parameters for Health and Well-Being in the Built Environment.” Archnet-IJAR International Journal of Archi-tectural Research , no. Volume 8 Issue 2 (July): 62–76. https://earthwise.education/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Biophilicdesign-patterns.



rably 100 feet, incorporate an information-rich pro-spect view by designing with or around an existing or planned savannah-like ecosystem, body of water, and evidence of human activity or habitation, limit opa-que partitions (e.g., workplace conditions, landscape hedges) to 42 inches in height 8.

Large central features and open visual fields may not be possible in the scope of many projects but achie-ving the same essence of creating connection throu-gh audio stimulation can be. Let us be creative in our planning, imagine a radial furniture layout resem-bling a flower connecting to nature. That connection emphasized with a biophilic design feature cascading behind, accented by beautiful suspended lights highli-ghting the lush vibrant color. (Figure 3)

The separated layouts of furniture can have varied solutions of designed auditory zones that can create intimate groupings or be varying in auditory inten-sity. These zones can vary from the quiet space with low ceilings and soft surfaces for more intimate fee-ling settings or purposeful loudness caused by hard surfaces. It has been proven that introducing ambient sounds based on the sounds of nature promote crea-tivity9. The loudness, if controlled correctly, will con-nect others by hearing those around minimizing dead air caused by physical separation. It is like hearing a train whistle in the night, even though you are alo-ne within your bed, you hear the world moving and know that you are not the only one awake.

Utilizing visual and auditory designs now thrusts us into the world of experiential and emotional design.

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fig. 1

fig. 2

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Many designs of the past have neglected these aspects as function and form has controlled our budgets. Clients focused on capacity and high turnover but this is the way of the past. With public spaces and restau-rants beginning to open back up, we are not seeing the resurgence of attendance that was expected. Why? People are feeling vulnerable and scared, they do not feel that these spaces properly separate nor do they provide the escapism that they once did. Bygone are these designs of the past, as those solutions can no

longer achieve their original goals with the same re-sonance as they once did. Design has followed similar principles of proxemics for years with minor tweaks that have slowly metastasized. Then, in 2020, we were hit with an opportunity for change. This pandemic, as devastating as it is, can be an opportunity for desi-gners to create safe and dynamic spaces whilst brin-ging back connectivity with creative emotional design experiences. Let us not depend on moving chairs fur-ther apart, let us redesign the seat.

Bibliography

Hall, Edward T., Ray L. Birdwhistell, Bernhard Bock, Paul Bohannan, A. Richard Diebold, Marshall Durbin, Munro S. Edmonson, J. L. Fischer, Dell Hymes, Solon T. Kimball, Weston La Barre, Frank Lynch, S. J., J. E. McClellan, Do-nald S. Marshall, G. B. Milner, Harvey B. Sarles, George L Trager, and Andrew P. Vayda. “Proxemics [and Comments and Replies].” Current Anthropology 9, no. 2/3 (1968): 83-108. Accessed May 13, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/2740724.

“How to Protect Yourself & Others.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 24, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html.

“Proxemics.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Accessed May 13, 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proxemics.

Ryan, Catherine, William Browning, Joseph Clancy, Scott Andrews, and Namita Kallianpurkar. 2014. “BIOPHILIC DESIGN PATTERNS Emerging Nature-Based Parameters for Health and Well-Being in the Built Environment.” Ar-chnet-IJAR International Journal of Architectural Research, no. Volume 8 Issue 2 (July): 62–76. https://earthwise.education/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Biophilicdesign-patterns.

fig. 3

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(SO WON’T YOU TAKE A BREATH?)

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PANDEMIC AND

POST-PANDEMIC. THE ANNUS HORRIBILIS

AND THE DISCIPLINARY RE-CONSTITUTION

WRITTEN BY

Pier Federico Caliari

21

Turin-Milan-Inverigo, April 19th, 2020.

I t took a terrible pandemic to make peo-ple understand the primacy of qual-ity of life, and that most of that pri-

macy is due to the quality of living spaces. When, in a certain number of months, the desire to regain the habits and spaces frequented before the annus horribilis will prevail over the emer-gency and we will return to an almost normal life, we will tend to forget if not to remove a period of our existence among the most dramatic in our history. A drama that has not unfolded between bombings or destruction caused by natural events – that deprive of their own things, their own home and loved ones – but, on the contrary and para-doxically, has matured within the house walls due to a curfew necessary to save many lives and to avoid the spread of the contagion. Suddenly, the homes of many people have turned into prisons with unexpected psychological implications and still many consequences to study. What is certain is that for a large part of the population, their own protective space consisting of a number of square meters intended for housing, has become other from the purpose which it was designed to. It has become insufficient, inadequate, and improper.

Together with the oblivion, however, there will also remain the conviction that the design of the interior housing landscape – but also of the work, exchange, and spiritual regeneration spaces – are of real strategic importance in terms of social qual-ity of life. We realized in these months of confine-ment within the house walls that the architecture of the interior is fundamental to the achievement of this quality independently of the measures of freedom of movement and behaviour restrictions associated with the state of emergency. It has been realized, by those who make the profession of architect, that some pillars of modernity have entered into crisis, first of all the one of popular housing, of references to rational architecture, or the primacy of the city and public space over pri-

1 Is interesting to notice that criticism to the Casabella-Continuità Paradigm is a recurring theme in the attempt of a part of architec-tural culture to free itself from the structural link between politics, academy and profession, already from the end of the Sixties and emerged several times in the following years. In this regard and more in detail, a paper by Claudio D’Amato Guerrieri – about the his-tory of the magazine Controspazio directed by Paolo Portoghesi and born with precise reference to the cult-magazine Spazio directed by Luigi Moretti – is illuminating: “(...) in the following two seasons Portoghesi countered the attempt of the intellectual elites, who had in «Casabella» their reference, to impose a “unique thought” flattened on the orthodox interpretation of modernism”. And, quoting his 2008 interview with Portoghesi (cf. C. D’Amato, Studiare l’architettura, Roma, Gangemi Editore, 2014, pp. 84 et seq.) he mentions the words: “(...) I remember that we fought the famous buildings “engaged”, those of the generation before mine, I was, like Ridolfi, completely opposed to this series C, made with very good intentions, but also extremely easy to do, because then the spontaneous question was: “Would they be able to do A-series things?”, and probably they were not”. See Claudio D’Amato Guerrieri, Controspazio come “piccola rivista”, in FAM https://www.famagazine.it/index.php/famagazine/article/view/84/643

vate space not only housing – relegated to mere distributive aspects – as well as the primacy of ur-ban design on interior design, considered the use-less Cinderella among the disciplines of the proj-ect. In essence, we realized that the crisis of the Casabella-Continuità Paradigm, which for more than half a century has influenced the Italian ar-chitectural culture (and not only), eliminating the best enlightened professionalism and marginal-izing the interior design, replaced them with a political vision – academically protected – of an architecture whose competence and realization re-mained firmly in the hands of a very limited num-ber of professors-architects. Basically, to promote a dramatically poor architecture.1

This is not a disciplinary revenge, a reaction to the ancillary condition that interior architecture has experienced despite itself in the last thirty years, but a pure and simple act that anticipates, or should anticipate, a reconsideration and a rede-sign of the profile of the architect’s profession. This fact obviously concerns also the teaching of a sub-ject – the architecture – that in the last decade, es-pecially in Italy, has been measured by an unprec-edented legitimisation crisis due essentially to the loss of its core identity, generating a heavy loss of credibility in front of the society and the Country which is summed up in the dramatic consequence that families no longer want their children to en-rol in Architecture Faculties. If you think about it – and this process has not interrupted at all in the current trends – we are remarkably close to the apodictic condition of the end of architecture.

This is not the place to deepen these reasons, but certainly the teaching of architecture failed. The mistakes are there, they were there, and they have been heavy. First of all, the downgrading of the in-terior architecture (we have witnessed a real search for its delegitimization), crushed by the declining “urban design” on one hand, and pressed by the symmetrical success of “design” on the other. But which was the mistake? Several errors have been

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made in different directions, but the main one was having eliminated the term Beauty from the vocabulary of the Architect, in favour of new and more salvific anglicisms as smart city, job sharing, home office, social housing that have replaced the hardest and Teutonic existenz minimum, siedlun-gen, trabanten prinzip, etc. The search for beauty has left the educational objectives of the architects and so the discipline that some of them have the task – of paramount importance – to teach the new generations who grow without the categorical imperative of its attainment.

There is no more Beauty in architecture. Beauty is considered a reactionary concept that underlies differences, even social ones; is therefore better legitimize the ugly... and get the bare minimum sadness.

All we’ve learned in our lives, inside and outside the discipline, is that we are social animals, that we need to be as close and united as possible, that we need to share large and small spaces, that we can drink in the same glass, pass each other saliva and sweat, have intimacy and sociality, enter and exit the same sharing car and the same shower. We have therefore been educated to the exact oppo-site of what we must try to do from now on. It was nice when on Fridays you used to go to a bar for a happy hour kissing and embracing friends, toasted and handed you beer and maybe cigarettes, mouth to mouth. Today is better not to do so, and we must get over it. But before these differences become standardized quantitative data (social distance measurement, building regulations, square meters per capita, etc.) – which will certainly happen for the reconversion of many activities to the smart-work – it will be necessary to rethink the quality of the interior architectural landscape, considering the psychological, aesthetic, and spiritual aspects – in a word the humanistic aspects – and bring the art and the craft of being an architect to a very practical condition.

This is a condition based on the re-appropriation of the centre of space, on the vision of all six faces of the fence, on the sequence and concatenation of the spaces, their shape and articulation, their exercise of forces and counter-forces towards our corporeity, of their tactility and chromatism, of their aesthetic quality, of their Beauty.

At a certain point we realize that the spaces are

not enough and that there is too much sociality even between two people but, paradoxically, if one is missing loneliness takes over, the spaces come back to widen but they lack of sharing, the word is missing and you have no other way but to con-front yourself with your space, with the idea that generated it and with its set up made of commu-nicative artifacts, devices for the stimulation of aesthetic pleasure, for the organization of time in discrete phases and moments. What we initially established within the founding act of the posses-sion of a space, including its organization and the involvement of prosthetics for the interaction with it, is what we can dispose even during the emer-gency. What we have decided every time we have thought/founded and re-thought/re-founded a space, is our endowment even when we are forced within friendly walls. If the choices have been far-sighted we enjoy the results, but if they have not and we have underestimated their significance with respect to Time, life will seem psychologically reduced and there will be a sense of intolerance and rebellion against our own walls.

Post-pandemic and desire for Beauty. Re-founding interior architectureTurin-Milan-Inverigo, May 21st, 2020.

A month has passed since the first part of this writing… I thought to divide it into two parts rela-tive to the during and after confinement, to bet-ter confront the perception of the two moments. Italy has, at least in part, reopened its doors on the wave of a sensitive anxiety for a possible economic crisis but also, in truth, under a mediatic pres-sure from those who have strongly criticized the closure claiming the right to regain public space and habits to which seems particularly difficult to renounce.

What perception do we have today of the end of confinement? What remains of the experience of pandemic detention? The domestic interior seems to have been replaced by the interior of the squares and urban corridors. But the desire for freedom (and some of its uncontrolled manifestations) so power-

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fig. 1 Palladio - Interno con cupola rotonda (Vicenza)

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fully expressed is not the real mirror of living on the timeline of everyday life. In the end, we wonder what can/must be done to redesign the spaces of interior-ity. I suppose nothing… nothing that is not predict-able quantitative: a neutral space of decantation/filter between the inside and the outside, techno-logical equipment of network to transform houses in spread hospitals (see the notes of Pierluigi Panza). Will we move from a masonry house to an equipped and flexible house? It is difficult and however there will be a few cases of specific study. PhD cases. In any case, all these devices will be the subject of the next two or three building fair and object of cultured reflections in the world of furniture design. But our stone cities are not made for flexibility, for rapid re-configuration, and after all the historic city is beauti-ful as such. Besides, we probably do not even like the social distance – which in fact is exercised only under coercion – and therefore it will not even be a matter of increasing the surfaces by building regulations for new buildings.

What about the Architect’s Handbook or the Neufert? Will they be updated with the appropriate solutions to the decrees of the President of the Council on the prevention of infections? Who knows… but it is not so important.

Are there, instead, the conditions for a disciplinary re-foundation of the interior architecture down-stream of the pandemic? This was the question I was wandering at the beginning of this writing… I am afraid there are not, at least for the moment. Is too early. The pandemic is not over, in Europe it seems to be under control, but in Russia, Africa and South America it is still expanding. So, is still a little early to make evaluations. If there will be the conditions for a re-foundation, I believe that the path could be the one of the interdisciplinarity: not a disciplinary re-foundation but a bi-disciplinary re-foundation. With which partners? I do not think scientific ones. The only possible partner is Beauty and the only im-perative post Covid is and will always be to reach and get it. Architecture is not a science and cannot be re-founded or re-thought by virologists. It can (perhaps) be re-founded only by architects who aspire to the achievement of Beauty.

Let us try to understand each other, from architects to architects. What is Beauty in architecture? How do you get it in private or public space? Let us try with the collage technique, adding to the frame of refer-

ence a series of emotional solicitations: Beauty is per-spective perception on a landscape rich in stirrings that solicit aesthetic responses. Beauty is the ques-tioning of space and the ability to read its most vivid expressions. The pursuit of Beauty is the constant contention between ego-centric feeling and abandon-ment to the standard where ego-centric is the good character and abandonment to the standard is the bad character to be killed. Beauty is the gaze on na-ture, even the artificialized one. Beauty is a selective lure, the art of knowing how to choose and decide. Beauty is a bar under which you never have to go. Beauty is an artifice of our sensitivity that allows us to tend to the magnificent and to remain indifferent to the miserable. Beauty requires an intensely com-mitted behaviour to always keep the profile of the project high. Beauty requires elegance of thought and behaviour. Beauty is one of the forms of communica-tion and moves within codes and systems of expecta-tions. Beauty is not innate; it is not a dowry. Beauty is designed and built with thought. Beauty is obtained. Obtaining Beauty is not simple but is a categorical imperative.

The primary measure of Beauty is the ego-centre where form is substance, without hypocrisy. What I design is what I see. Beauty is tested first on itself. That is the problem. Without a severe bildung any test results negative, there is no Beauty. So, the prob-lem is to educate ourselves to Beauty to teach Beauty. It is necessary to know very well the aesthetic-be-havioural codes of one’s own milieu, to elaborate its meaning under the semantic and cognitive aspect and to follow its development in a certain Delta T that is that of our experience in the project dimen-sion. But it is also necessary to understand how and how much the codes can be combined in a new way, originating not the palliative of a new thing, but giv-ing life to a sublime recapitulation. Beauty can there-fore be experienced within a system of rules and conventions. The knowledge of these, together with the creative bargaining started with them originates the processes of definition of Beauty that emerges thanks to the acquisition and display of charisma. Beauty lies where architecture is charismatic. To ob-tain Beauty is necessary to work on the parameters – accessible to a creative thought – of the charis-matic architecture. Here charisma is not meant as a supernatural gift obtained by divine grace but as the condition that originates the gift bestowed on a community. That is an architecture that exerts a sub-

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fig. 2 Carlo Scarpa - Cappella del cimitero Brion Altivole

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stantial and meaningful influence because it is gener-ated by a planning thought in a state of grace.

In this regard, I would like to suggest the comparison – in this context still unspecified about what will be in the future, with what I consider the first and perhaps the only formal theory of interior architecture – for-mulated by Luigi Walter Moretti and published in the seventh issue of the magazine Spazio2 in 1953, in rela-tionship with Beauty: a comparison that I consider a starting point and a specific reference for a re-found-ing of the discipline of the interiors to be transmitted within the school to exclusive support of the bildung. It is precisely the relationship between the disciplines of design creativity and artistic vision that consti-tutes the Architecture-Beauty paradigm expressed by Spazio, especially in its period of editorial continuity (1950-53). The entire program of the magazine is based on the artistic vision of architecture in all its projec-tual variations and always from the point of view of the form (architecture-building, architecture-struc-ture, architecture-interiors, architecture-art, architec-ture-history, architecture-furniture, architecture-ar-chaeology, architecture-restoration (reconstruction), architecture-set-up, architecture-museography, ar-chitecture-decorations, architecture-graphic).3

Parametric and differential formal theory – the one enunciated in the essay “Structures and sequences of spaces” – has for object the quality of the architectur-al space. There are two peculiar aspects enunciated by Moretti: the first is that the quality is measurable-representable; the second is that interior architec-ture is considered the primary aspect of architecture, the one on which it essentially depends:

“(…) There is, however, an expressive aspect that summarizes with such a remarkable latitude the ar-chitectural fact that seems able to be assumed, even in isolation, with greater tranquillity than the oth-ers: I mean to mention the inner and empty space of an architecture. In fact, it is enough to observe that

2 Spazio N°7, Rassegna delle Arti e dell’Architettura was an art magazine founded and directed by Luigi Walter Moretti. Published from 1950 to 1968 in Rome with a distinctly multidisciplinary attitude (from architecture to sculpture, from painting to cinema and theater, to archaeology and restoration), Spazio is one of the major specialist publications of project theory and creative activity. After 1953, the publications took on a rhapsodist character until they ended in 1968.To learn more, see also the authoritative comment by Ernesto D’Alfonso on the analysis of Moretti’s essay presented in the first issue of the online magazine Arc2 Città of December 16th, 2015. http://www.arcduecitta.it/2015/12/studio-di-spazio-n-7-l-moretti-strutture-e-sequenze-di-spazi/

3 Programmatically - as a “review of Arts and Architecture” - Spazio has dealt with Beauty in a structural and substantial way. The re-lationship with the artistic avant-garde and the new postwar trends such as futurism, spatialism, abstractionism, concrete art and in some ways also with the nascent kinetic art, is declared starting from the magazine covers (designed by the Italians Angelo Canevari, Alberto Magnelli, Gino Severini, and the Belgian Charles Conrad) always dedicated to art and graphics and content, in some cases with a monographic dimension and depth. For a complete picture of the first seven issues of Spazio, published between 1950 and 1953, it is pos-sible to browse the online versions edited by the University of Roma Tre http://arti.sba.uniroma3.it/rivistaspazio/

some expressive elements – chiaroscuro, plasticity, density of matter, construction – reveal themselves as formal or intellectual aspects of “matter”, in its physical concreteness put at stake in architecture, and therefore form a group of a certain homogene-ity and strongly representative as a whole. Now it should be noted that the empty space of the interior of an architecture contrasts exactly to this group as a specular value, symmetrical and negative, as a true negative matrix, and as such capable of summariz-ing together itself and its opposites terms. Especially where the internal space is the main reason, or even reason for the birth of the factory, as it is mostly, it is revealed as the seed, the mirror, the richest symbol of the entire architectural reality. This was clear for the ancients and for centuries; from the Romans to the Romanics, from the Goths to Brunelleschi, from Bramante to Guarini, the conquest and resolution of the interior spaces coincided with the conquests and the history of architecture itself.”

But it is also an essay on sublime Beauty, without ever being openly named or defined. It is, if anything, alluded to – through its own sub-liminar essence - and understood as the outcome of a state of grace. The relationship between space and emotion is the theme of the essay. This implies a psychological situation that is primarily experiential and matured with perception, but it is also a design condition for those who, pencil in hand, disposes the quality of space considering it not autonomously, but as a plu-ral sequence. The sequence of spaces implies a move-ment and therefore a physicality, a corporeity that is never abstract but is “measurable” and involves four parameters: “This “differential” research – Moretti writes – is logically fully justified because it does not derive from absolute interpretations of spaces, but from their comparison by means of parameters that once assumed remain, exact or not, always the same. Therefore, set the four qualities, or parame-ters, of the internal volumes, the analysis will focus

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fig. 3 Guarino Guarini - Cappella della Sindone (Torino)

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on them only. We will examine the sequences in the differences that, between the volumes that compose them, are revealed by geometric shape, absolute quantity of volume, density, energetic “pressure”. The first two are differences felt intellectually, the second two intellectually and psychologically.”

Then the author deepens clarifying the role of inte-rior architecture and the nature of the parameters: “The links between an internal space and an archi-tecture are infinite and very rigid; we can say that an internal space has as its limit surface that skin on which the energies and facts that allow it and form it condense and are readable, and of which the same space generates existence. But the internal volumes have a concrete presence themselves, regardless of the shape and body of the material that tightens them, as if they were formed by a rarefied substance devoid of energy but extremely sensitive to receive it. They have qualities of their own, four of which, I believe, are revealed: the geometric shape, simple or complex; the size understood as the quantity of abso-lute volume; the density, depending on the quantity and the distribution of light that permeates it; the “pressure” or “energy charge”, according to the prox-imity more or less looming, in each point of space, of the liminal constructive masses, of the ideal ener-gies that emanate from them. This quality is compa-rable to the pressure that in a fluid in constant mo-tion varies depending on the obstacles, oppositions, tapering that meets; or also the potential of a space as a function of the electric masses that influence it.”

The internal volumes, therefore, are full of emptiness, ineffable matter but overly sen-sitive to receive energy and able to return it through perceptual stimulation and bodily ex-perience. The quality of the space is therefore: - analysable and “measurable” through the four pa-rameters: form-geometry (formal syntax quality), absolute size-volume (three-dimensional develop-ment quality), density-light (shape perception qual-ity), liminal pressure-energy (quality of the articula-tion of the fence).

4 At the time of writing the essay, the models used in support of the same were made with plaster poured in the cast of the internal surfaces of the architecture analysed (the cast in turn had to be wooden as it would appear from the turning of the circular and domed spaces, and some joints in the hierarchies of volumes). Today they could be realized through a thermoforming blister, with medium high costs, that would allow the transparency; or with the 3D printer, cheaper for a university design studio; in case of the 3D printer two outputs could be obtained: the first with a powder printer that would return the materialization of the theoretical surface present near the liminal limbs with a counter-mould mode (empty inside). So, with a representation of the void materialized only in correspondence of its “skin”. With a material deposit printer (PLA wire) instead, in addition to the result expressed by the previous printer, you could have a honeycomb fill of the vacuum generated by default by the machine, useful to visualize a full/empty set able to give back a three-dimensional visible mass, placing the result halfway between the powder print model and the wooden one by Moretti.

- perceptible and psychologically detectable in the unfolding of the differential sequence.

The iconography and examples introduced by Moret-ti are of argumentative and logical syntactic efficacy but also of great methodological interest. In particu-lar, the space analysed from its “negative matrix” is powerfully analogue: the vacuum expressed through the full form without the enclosure and the liminal constructive masses offers a vision of the absolute interior. A new and extremely effective technique (especially if related to the current possibilities and techniques of an architecture studio and experimen-tation managed by students)4, where the air becomes full matter and “explains” what happens in the re-mote parts of the height of the buildings and where the moldings make the chiaroscuro vibrate and un-derstand the hierarchies.

The negative matrices used by Moretti in the es-say concern three different examples of se-quences of spaces: sequence by shape differ-ence, sequence by volume quantity difference, sequence by shape difference and volume quantity. The first differential sequence describes the contigu-ity of spaces extracted from the labyrinthine con-tinuum of Villa Adriana in Tivoli. In particular, the sequence between Teatro Marittimo (Natatorio as Moretti calls it), Sala dei Filosofi and Porch of Pecile. A fitting and refined extraction that captures one of the highest moments of the composition of the Vil-la still can be experienced today despite its state of ruin. Three very different elements – a round enclo-sure and an island in the centre separated by a circu-lar pool of water (unsurpassed topos of the architec-ture of the interior of all time), a magniloquent high apse hall with cubic matrix, and an extraordinary double two hundred meters ling and thirteen meters high porch – joined together by steps of calculated size carved symmetrically in the wall thickness of the Sala dei Filosofi and the circular enclosure. Three perceptual conditions and three different and con-catenated psychological impacts in which the pas-sages between elements play the role of compression

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before a perspective decompression. An experiential promenade that highlights both the refinement of the planning thought and the emotional response of the Prince who runs it (ego-divus).

For the other differential sequences and for some of the forms of representation, I refer to the origi-nal text of Moretti that cannot remain unknown for anyone who deals with interior architecture. It is important, however, before concluding, to remem-ber on which architectures the author applied the differential theory: San Filippo Neri in Casale Mon-ferrato by Guarino Guarini; Mc Cord House by Frank Lloyd Wright; the Palazzo Ducale of Urbino by Lucia-no Laurana and Francesco Di Giorgio Martini; Pala-zzo Thiene in Vicenza by Andrea Palladio; La Rotonda in Vicenza again by Palladio (modified and finished by Vincenzo Scamozzi); The Basilica of San Pietro, unsurpassed palimpsest in which realisation par-ticipated among the greatest ever, a kind of dream-team of Renaissance architecture: Donato Bramante, Raffaello Sanzio, Antonio da Sangallo, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Giovanni e Domanico Fontana, Giacomo Della Porta e Carlo Maderno; Palazzo Farnese by An-tonio da Sangallo and Michelangelo; S. Maria della Divina Provvidenza in Lisbon by Guarini; San Giovan-ni dei Fiorentini again by Michelangelo (project); to a less emphatic extent, Moretti’s Accademia di Scher-ma al Foro Italico in Rome and Mies Van der Rohe’s Tugendhat Villa in Brno. Only masterpieces…

I am coming to end by simply adding, in the form of aphorisms, some passages of Moretti that in my view are particularly significant for a project of dis-ciplinary re-foundation, where in addition to struc-tures and sequences of spaces it is necessary to have well in mind the reference examples, which every architecture student cannot have missed. Whatever will happen after Covid, regarding interior architec-ture I would start from the contents of his essay and bring them in the school. I would start from the in-terior as a founding act… I would start from a theory of architecture based on Beauty.

There is, however, an expressive aspect that summa-rizes with such a remarkable latitude the architec-tural fact that seems to be able to assume, even in isolation, with greater tranquillity than the others: I mean to mention the inner and empty space of an architecture.

If we think of the Baths of Diocletian, the Holy Spir-

it of Brunelleschi, the Basilica of San Pietro, some churches of Guarini, it seems clear to us that the in-terior spaces of these buildings, in which the great act of architecture joins – act intended for the largest number of men – are, because of their premise uni-versality, sharp cut on the human spirit in what it has of more elementary and constitutive.

The great spaces of architecture were born in Rome and are its magnificence.

Conclusions. Pandemic as a regenerative opportunity Baselga di Pinè, Agosto 15th of the Annus Horribilis

The pandemic, although being the basis of a series of reasoning that necessarily cause reverberations in the reflection on the nature and quality of the interior spaces and their design, does not shift the paradigm that is at the basis of the consolidated way of seeing “within architecture” in the western world. This is because – as I think – this reasoning affects quantitative and non-qualitative parameters, which are fundamentally centred on the concept of distance. The measure of the living space considered acceptable in the Western world, obtained through a continuous secular mediation with the economic parameters of the building (construction costs, rent land, urban planning, etc.) has atrophied to such a point that must be regulated by minimum housing standards. With the size of a bourgeois house of the 60s today we make two or three apartments. The per-spective depth of the interior has been lost and I do not think it will be possible to intervene on the current standards, which have now become the rule. Only a few privileged people will be able to act on the stan-dards and they will have access to a greater availabili-ty of space thanks to a greater availability of resources (but this has always happened). The paradigm shift, therefore, will not be of a democratic type but, as al-ways happens in the face of possible re-founding processes, will be linked to the energies arising from economic resources. All this, therefore, will not have any social impact on the quality of space and of the interior architecture, which will remain confined, I

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fear, within a matter of more or less square meters.

For this reason, if the pandemic is today an occa-sion for discussion and for revaluation, rethink-ing, re-founding the paradigm within which we have lived, we can only open to qualitative assess-ments, and that is on the form of architectural space and internal perception. And for this reason, a re-founding reasoning on the form of the interior, as the one outlined above, has as its main objective to introduce the theme of quality and therefore of Beauty. And is for this reason that it is important to recognize in Moretti’s parametric-differential theory of interior architecture the principle of a re-founding reasoning on the basis of quality and there-fore on Beauty as a realized perceptual quality. Moretti’s essay, in addition to what has already been described above, is exemplary in two aspects that I consider essential. The first concerns the cultural and historical context in which it was written (the Italian reconstruction of the 50s), a time of hous-ing emergency due to the significant loss of housing stock due to the war events, and the new urbanism of the second post-war industrialization provided for in the Marshall Plan. In this context, the entire militant architectural culture was engaged (and will remain engaged for many years) in the comparison with the problem of popular housing, in the frame-work of the new strategies of urban expansion and then redesign of the built landscape, which, more-over, will be devastated with the consequent crisis of rationalist models. Moretti, for its part and in the theoretical perspective supported by the magazine Spazio, moves the visual angle from the rationalist models of the project of the living space to frame the horizon of the great Italian historical architecture. It elaborates and essentially develops a model power-

fully alternative - certainly elitist and certainly iden-tity - all related to the world of visual arts and for-mal theories internal to philosophical and scientific thought, with particular attention to mathematical sciences. And, above all, it develops a model of “para-metric” control of the quality of the internal space and its perception based on the position of the ob-server. Hence the second essential aspect: among the four parameters – which are ad usum of the plan-ning thought – only one is mainly quantitative, that of the size of the absolute volume corresponding to the size/amplitude of the space. The other three pa-rameters are of a qualitative-perceptive nature as well as the general sense – and also poietic synthesis – of a project with a high differential content. The architectures and interiors analysed by Moretti are in turn exemplary for their exceptionality, in-cluding the most domestic such as the palace of Montefeltro in Urbino or the Rotonda di Vicenza. Each of these is assigned a specific mode of spatial analysis and perceptual path that does not refer only to the classical instrumentation based on or-thogonal projection, but involves several abstract schematic articulations that have as their scope to isoform to the parameters expressed in the essay (from the static volumetric patterns to the abstract two-dimensional descriptions of flows and mag-netic fields). That is to say, the difference against the standard. This is the principle that I still con-sider strongly current in Moretti’s proposal and that is to be placed as a basis for a post-pandemic reasoning – if we want to consider this condition and the Annus Horribilis in which it unfolded – as an opportunity for a review in qualitative sense of the interior architecture from the point of view of Beauty.

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POST PANDEMIC INTERIORS

-THE DESIGN

INTERNS’ VISTA

WRITTEN BY

Mani MakhijaStudent of IV year of Architecture of School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, India

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Abstract

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

T he current quarantine state and global medical emergency is only the first phase of the COVID-19 virus. It is also, arguably, only a forerunner of the cause of the future debacles. It will, as previous pandemics have, change

the course of our lives. Tuberculosis flattened roofs and added balconies and terra-ces to houses. The sun was a cure. A few years later, too much sun started causing skin-cancer. The changing times seek dynamic architecture- spaces that can adapt to changing needs, to disasters, to uncertainties. The millennials are the most un-certain generation, twitchy and traveling, more global than any before. Observa-tions on how the interiors confine the rallying generation formed multiple dynami-cs dealing in- flexibility, automation, plant scaping, etc. Spring will bloom within the house as we design to stay ‘essentially indoors’.

KEYWORDS: HYGIENE, CONSCIOUSNESS, FLEXIBILITY, AUTOMATION, SELF-RELIANCE, MERGE

Introduction2.a. Background:

The fourth year of Architectural Studies is dedicated to job-experience. Students travel far and beyond to intern at their dream office. After months of portfolio design, endless emails, and interviews, we reached our stations. The beginning was exciting, we were all spread across the globe, learning from the best minds, expanding our worldview. Unexpectedly, the coronavirus halted our wandering feet. We were now confined in the rooms we rented to simply sleep after a long day of hustle. Currently, there are some of us stuck in an unknown country amid the crisis- sometimes treated suspiciously in the foreign land. Few were able to return home, but are now stuck finding a functioning relationship in a house they left 4 years ago. All of us are trying to adjust to the gloomy shadow cast on “one of our most memorable col-lege experiences”. The paper seeks to highlight the problems and ideas of these creative minds as they transform their newly defined homes.

2.b. Research Rationale:

The pandemic is intimidating for everyone-the working mortal stuck at home, the mother with the sud-denly unoccupied children, the healthcare workers, etc. Students, interns, travelers had their excitement for an adventure take a very unpredictable turn. It would be interesting to observe the way the future creators cater to their crowded time and spaces.

2.c. Aim:

To analyze and interpret the consequences of the COVID-19 on the interiors of millennial designers.

2.d. Research/Interview Questions:1. How adversely is your zone affected by the COVID-19 disease?

2. Do you live alone/with your parents? What are the benefits/difficulties of your situation?

3. What are your favorite places in your home and what spaces do you feel uncomfortable in?

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4. Did you introduce any special hygiene and health measures in your house?

5. What are the new features that you have added/or intend to add in your home?

2.e. Scope and limitations

The study provides an insight into the minds of the youth and how they alter themselves and their surroundings in and after the global pandemic. It is limited to roommates, colleagues, classmates, and other interns interacting via social media and emails.

MethodQualitative data is collected through primary research in variable situations- single housing or shared housing. Owing to direct access to several students and interns, extensive research spanning over a batch of 80 spread across 10 different countries is carried.

Initial interviews start as a simple chat with friends leading to a more formal google meet interview, individually and all together, to make favorable connections.

The content is split into various categories based on a thematic analysis of the discussions and ideas.

3.a. Identifying the research basis

3.b. Literature study to observe trending interior alterations

3.c. Listing research questions and opinionated individuals

3.d. Conducting interviews and talk sessions

3.e. Analysing the data (Interpreting and identifying patterns)

3.f. Reasoning the common observations and adding personal observations/solutions

3.g. Generating a compilation of ideas and observations

3. Observations and Analysis

Some experienced observations are illustrated using a house plan of a 2.5 BHK inhabiting 6 interns in the city of Hanoi. It is used to formulate an idea of the 5 classifications of observations and analysis elabo-rated ahead. The categories allow to explore varying levels of reality and possibility.

4.a. Expansion of activities, time spent, number of people

Six students from three different colleges and cities moved in together in a 3 BHK flat in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. Two months later, the people who spent 2 hours together suddenly began spending 24. Being stuck indoors taught us to become more tolerant of each other’s quirks, more understanding of personal space, and also to communicate openly. Now, the living space faces the challenge to accommodate all these revelations. The open kitchen has to be fitted in with an optional divider, to be brought up to drown the voice of the singing chef as we attend meetings in the well-lit dining room. The bay window pushed outside to increase storage is brought back to provide a recluse sanctuary to work/relax in. The tea table once hardly used gains central importance as a dominos effect of 5-minute breaks brings the household together.

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fig.1 The house plan of 6 interns in Hanoi, Vietnam fig2. The changes in the 6 intern house in Hanoi, Vietnam

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Looking into a five-person household in Dwarka, New Delhi with one open living space, each one had different approaches to exercise- gymming, football, yoga, etc. The sofa was pushed to the wall and earphones knotted together as they all yearned to keep active. Flexible furniture can help maintain an easier flow. Beds which push back into the wall, sofas which open into beds, folding tables-stools, etc. make the bedrooms a convertible sanctuary.

After only spending a month of nights in a rented one-bedroom apartment in the beautiful city of Nice, France, a friend only had the necessities in the scrunched place. Spending the quarantine in-side made the space more personal, creating a new nostalgia. Our households will now hold evidence of our time inside- added cushions, mugs, plants. The interiors will accommodate these belongings for a long time. Designated spaces may be designed to display some of our creations and collections. The added instruments of hobbies developed- spaces to paint, play music, practice karate, etc. will also be-come a saintly state. Furniture will be introduced to aid the new habits and lifestyle- carpets/soft-floor patches, soundproof areas, mood painted walls, spill-resistant tables, and high/low chairs, etc.

4.b. Connecting the outdoors to the in-doors

‘Genkan’ is the area of a Japanese household desig-nated to leave shoes, dirt, and the outdoors behind as one enters the true indoors. Add a disinfecting nozzle, or simply a basin/ sanitizer-stand in the area, and one can interact with neighbors, deliv-ery personals, etc. without being scared of polluting their homes. A separated drawing room and per-sonal living area are normalized as we try to protect our space and privacy more than ever.

The green outside the window has to spill inside to provide comfort and oxygen. Easy plant scaping like mini-gardens, vertical gardens, or simple pot-ted plants became one of the top enthusiasm of the way-fared generation. The need to be surrounded by light and nature, to escape the sharp-edged walls will be a major influence on our interior design.

Giving up on an in-house terrace, only to choose one with more carpet area is a decision we regret-ted in the second month of their internships. The

design of our interior spaces will now have more outdoor connections- sit-outs, windows breaking open into mini-balconies, semi-open mezzanines, etc. Spaces will be designed so we don’t have to give up on either- our precious physical space or clean break of fresh air.

4.c. Consciousness

We began to fade into the background of spaces, becoming one with work and furnishings. Newly introduced to the fast-paced working culture of the field; it was very easy to lose ourselves in the work. The office allowed us to be aware of our schedules- simply by opening and closing, by lunch breaks, and an interactive environment. Inside the house, work began a little late, but it spilled to the cooking hours, the dining areas, the bedroom. We took our work everywhere- sometimes lost interest, some-times lost ourselves in it. Separation of working and relaxing hours and spaces is an experienced need. A study table has to be placed in front of the window, to keep a check on the time and surroundings. Few distractions like a timed moonlight or Alexa alarms to create and maintain the schedule.

Visionary cues are also important. Alone or grouped in with familiar-unfamiliar strangers in a new place, it is important to be able to interact. We will forget our social cues and become even more awkward is a well-discussed fear of many. Festivities and planned interactions allow us to stay in touch with the calen-dar and society. Online party furniture- disco lights, a quirky wall may be introduced. Benches that allow us to feel the shape of another without being in con-tact with them can be introduced - to feel warmth and brio.

4.d. Automation

The revolution to bring health and hygiene to the forefront has just begun. Automation is the key to unravel the spiral. We have always been pro-tech-nology, the most actively lazy breed. Voice-con-trolled lifts, doors, security will become the norm. Even a germ scan in the genkan or a temperature control machine is not a far-fetched idea.

As we avoid contact, spaces will be allotted for drone deliveries and the products will be cleansed before they come down the shaft to our kitchen.

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Many of us still depended on domestic help in countries like India, Vietnam, etc. After living without them, we realized our appliances need to update and are capable of replacing the help. An in-troduction of the westerly normalized dishwasher, Alexa-driven vacuum, and easy wash grinders, etc. will replace outdated equipment in the sink, broom-closet, and kitchen. Even the washrooms will be altered to a modern haven- with Japanese technology phasing in with its superior clean W/C and other installations to make the toilet the most hygienic place in the house. Self-cleaning appli-ances and health aids will be greatly added to the interior setup.

4.e. Self-Reliance

We became more independent than assumed in this new phase. We also became more creative. Many of us learned to fix our shelves, found sol-ace in cooking, building, and painting around the house. The house will see a shift in emphasized spaces. Suddenly the ignored kitchen will become the most equipped and ornamented. Some might add a workshop space to work on these newfound passions and even fill up the house with their fur-nishings.

Inspiration and material will be found locally as we grow more aware to support local businesses. The décor of our house will now be sorted in a few stores down the lane or even our friend’s new workshop.

Moving back after four years in a hostel dorm, we also found a lot of clutter in our childhood homes. Most things are simply forgotten in time. Decluttering was a widely-observed phe-nomenon. As they emptied their cluttered, nar-row spaces many also grew concerned about the amount of waste produced. New spaces for proper segregation within the house, to bury compost and even try aquaponics will be eagerly introduced. Aquaponics is a great way to create a beautiful garden, a serene pond, and observe harmony in nature within. This way self-reli-ance moves to a larger dynamic and benefits the environment as well.

Concluding Statement

The interiors do not have to be drastically altered from open plans to strict walls. Our minds hold ideas to make the space more flexible- to achieve safety while maintaining a connection. The new interiors can be imagined to have light spilling in from various corners, sometimes buffered by the green inside as one works on his self-built table with his robot vacuum whirring in the distance. It is a space in which walls and furniture move as much as living beings. There is no one right an-swer for the future of interiors and so it changes each time the question does.

References

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/14/21211789/coronavirus-office-space-work-from-home-design-archi-tecture-real-estate

https://www.forbes.com/sites/reginacole/2020/04/17/five-ways-covid-19-is-changing-the-future-of-inte-rior-design/#62a10b032ee2

https://www.italianbark.com/future-interior-trends-interior-design-corona-virus/

https://www.dezeen.com/2020/03/25/life-after-coronavirus-impact-homes-design-architecture/

https://www.commercialinteriordesign.com/insight/46277-how-interior-design-can-fight-the-coronavirus

SPECTRUM OF SPATIAL

MANIFESTATIONS IN HOMES, DURING A

PANDEMIC

AUTHOR:

Deepiga Kameswaran Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture,

Dr.MGR Educational & Research Institute Chennai.CO AUTHOR:

Anil Ravindranathan Professor, Faculty of Architecture,

Dr.MGR Educational & Research Institute Chennai.

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Abstract

T his paper is an attempt to retrospect the spaces in a home in the current scenario of a pandemic lurking large, changing life and the way we live. The context of analysis and research is limited to that of a city in the Indian

subcontinent with a specific socio economic background. The paper would obser-ve at what made a home before and how the pandemic situation changed it. “One of the most important ways in which the built environment carries the imprint of society is in the way space is organized for human purposes, which lies in the achievement of appropriate and efficient function of the house.” ((Aspinall) Explo-ring space, people & time (pandemic situation) helps in understanding spatial dy-namics & people behavior better. To explore this better the authors came up with a spectrum of spatial manifestations with which they could evaluate spatial usage in various degrees. The paper would further delve on the spectrum of spatial mani-festation ranging from physical to psychological to virtual spatial manifestations. These were inspired by the works of Henri Lefebvre which are slightly modified to current times. Exploring the various layers of the spatial manifestations is to look at how the human use, respond and adapt in the spatial boundaries and beyond its boundaries. Understanding Indian homes then and now (past & present) also helped in asserting the choice of homes and people for a survey. An online survey was conducted based on the above mentioned context & spectrum of spatial mani-festations with its parameters, among 44 people. Select live cases of the authors’ homes helped in understanding the scenario through phenomenological approach. Drawing conclusions based on the survey results in accordance with the spatial ma-nifestations enables wide understanding of the present and future of lives within one’s homes. The research process further develops with the paper in exploring how people perceive the spaces and respond to it depending on the boundaries of various realms with their bodies and mind, singularly and as group. These understandings would help academicians and designers understand design better from a human centric point of view as well as throw light on how life continues within a home and how people utilize home spaces during a pandemic. The paper acts both as a retrospective and a prospective study in understanding design of future homes.

KEYWORDS: HOME, SPACES IN A HOME, SPATIAL MANIFESTATIONS, HOME INTERIORS DURING PANDEMIC,

PERCEPTION OF SPACES, PEOPLE & SPACES, PHYSICAL , PSYCHOLOGICAL, VIRTUAL

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Introduction

I t is believed that a house is transformed into a home by the family, making the house, an integral part of their daily lives, rituals, beliefs and activities. (Lawrence, . (1987).) In India the homes are completely different from what it used to be. The rich vernacular roots and beliefs used to strongly

reflect in the traditional homes. But in recent times with the migration towards city leading to skyrock-eting land price, homogenization has happened to the homes in India. Compactness due to land prices have also led to minimal semi open spaces and windows in modern homes. These factors further eradi-cated olden day practices of hygiene that was part of spaces in homes and people’s lifestyle. Work was a sustainable community driven practice in India and it was gradually subdued by the British colonial rule and its influences on education. Delving on home, spatial characteristics & family life, before and now, helps to draw understandings of past, present with respect to the current pandemic. This would help with learning and tentatively provide suggestions for the homes to be designed in future.

1. Space in a house [home] & its inhabitantsSpaces in a home were predominantly used for resting, refreshing and family bonding. But work was not greatly meddled at home until recently with the internet revolution, which brought in information to our doorsteps & connected us to the world. With family becoming nuclear and both genders pursuing career, home was predominantly used as recharge spaces for its inhabitants. In an Indian context city like Chennai the climate is hot and humid. The upper middle class people under study are the ones who exploit the energy in various forms, preferring air-conditioning in their homes, cars, theatres, shops, etc. The affordability of this category of people have led to the boom of malls, which brought – shops, restaurants, food courts, multiplexes, gaming, etc., under one roof. This is a typical hangout space for the mentioned study group, during the leisure time of the week and would be over crowded during week-ends. People footfall in malls directly implied the reduced amount of time one spent at home. With the pandemic outbreak, malls were among the first spaces to be completely shut off. In that context, homes are undergoing a never before transformation to adapt and assimilate the changes brought about by the pandemic, forcing everyone to be within the realm of their home. This transformation has given an insight as to how it may be possible to change the spatial- activity in new ways. Irrespective of typology, size and economic strata, this change is evident all around.

2. Family & House - Indian context & Limitations

2.1. The Indian Family In India the concept of family is very strong and it could be called a bit rigid in its values, at times. Joint families prevailed in olden days where the extended family would live within the same premises. (Chad-da, 2013) This family type is still prevalent in quite a few cases today. This could increase the emotional strength of the microcosm, of the home they live in. In Indian context, marriage is a bond that keeps family going. Even today, a person is supposed to get married and start their unit of a family with chil-dren before they turn 30. Else the societal pressure would mount on the person. There are a very few who do not give into these pressures. This is one reason why the family is strong in an Indian context and maintains emotional strength during tough times. This can also be considered shortcoming at times. These views can be very subjective from person to person.

2.2. Hygiene in Traditional & Current Indian Homes:

The eastern tradition incorporates hygiene in their everyday lives as well as architecture. The planning of traditional Indian houses, irrespective of location, in India, maintained this sense of hygiene, by

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separating the toilets from the main structure of the house. The habit of washing hands and feet before entering the home was also prevalent as a strong indicator of this sense of hygiene. They have spaces and spatial elements, exclusive for ablution & sun drying. The thinnai (semi open front yard), pinkattu (backyard), muttram (central courtyard), etc. (Vedamuthu, 31/01/2001) were meant for hygiene based on spatial use restrictions. They also tend to take a bath when they come back from outside. This backyard was used mainly for ablution including toilet, bathroom and wash area. Maybe an old pandemic left them with these hygiene habits. A specific caste group used to have high clothesline, so that none would touch the clothes. Even cooking was considered auspicious act and not merely a chore back those days. Disinfection using natural techniques used to happen every week. There used to be separate servant entrances. Some castes did not employ the servants. (Vedamuthu, 31/01/2001)With globalization and the strongly promoted global model of housing typologies, this practice became redundant. However, this practice has once again re-surfaced as a requirement throughout this pandemic. Before one enters the home, washing hands and feet has been advised as a first step of defense during this pandemic. But design considerations for the same are not defined in the modern day compact homes in India. The pinkattu (Tamil for Backyard) has become completely obsolete.

2.3. Work in Traditional & Current Indian Homes:

Caste system in India was based on their occupation. (Sonawani, 2017)The occupation used to be family run; hence a part of the house will always have work quarters in the front side. Thinnai (Front yard or foyer) and the portion of the front courtyard would be work areas within the houses. Later with the Brit-ish mode of education and the advent of offices in the 20th century, this caste based occupation system gradually declined. Caste system’s influences on homes are nil. Again globalization brought in hous-ing typologies not original to the land and its context. This led to the workspace disappearing from the houses. With information revolution and work from home options of the recent years there is a gradual inclusion of workspaces in the middle and upper middle class families. A study or a workspace became part of the requirements in a select few houses, in current days. Again they were spatially characterless as result of the homogenized kind of work people do. Understanding the changing work traditions is necessary as work has moved to the modern homes. There will be more emphasis on comfortable work space design in homes during an unforeseen situation like this pandemic.

2.4. Limitations of the Research:

The research is aimed to study the families with (either one or two) kids, dwelling in the homogenized homes in suburbs of Chennai, India. The homogenized homes are apartments & multiple housing units within a premise. According to the Indian context a family is complete only when you have kids. The economic status of the people who were surveyed is upper middle class, as they do not face financial constraints for basic needs and with the support of internet and technology, they are able to catch up with their work, at the same time socialize virtually, keep themselves entertained, etc. They belong to a common social stratum. The main questions that were holistically addressed in the survey are: What does this pandemic mean to these people? What do they believe are the changes that they and their houses underwent, because of it?

3. Spectrum of spatial manifestations: Physical - Psychological - VirtualSpace (place) & people: What is place for, without people? People, who occupy a space, make a huge impact in how one perceives or uses that space. People, their minds & bodies perceive spaces. Exploring space with respect to its inhabitants & their perception, leads to a spectrum of spatial manifestations. Lefebvre in his work The Production of Space interprets space on three levels; physical, mental and so-cial space. (Lefebvre, 1991). The three major manifestations of space are varied to analyze the homes in

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the current pandemic situation. Social dimension of the home has lost its dimension in homes, hence physical, psychological & virtual are the three spatial manifestations that the authors have put forth. Further by analyzing past and present of Indian homes, they further split each manifestation into rel-evant parameters. The following graphical representation throws light on the spectrum of spatial mani-festations and its parameters.

3.1. Graphical representation

‘How does space get manifested in a home? How does one’s physical body react to the space, its bound-aries and beyond? How does one’s mind react to the space? How does a person behave in a space when alone? Which space does one like (or use) more, in their home? How does one behave differently with another family member in the same space? How does a person react to all the above in the case of this pandemic? How much impact has the pandemic enforced in homes?’ With these intriguing questions in mind the authors set forth to formulate the survey questionnaire. People, their presence, their inter-actions among the others in the space in their home, uncommon scenarios like the current pandemic have huge impacts on the void within the built form. The authors also looked at their homes as live cases in a phenomenological way with respect to the spatial spectrum.

3.2. Unexpected scenarios & Infinitum factors in the spectrum

The unexpected scenarios can be child birth, loss of family member, etc., or in the current times a pandemic. These tend to change the dynamics of an existing spatial spectrum. The infinitum factors (BEYOND) could be the fenestrations, buffer spaces, open spaces, one’s gadgets. These tend to transport a person between various spatial experiences through its manifestations. Infinitum factors can cause comfort, relaxation, entertainment etc.

Illustration 01 – Spectrum of Spatial manifestations & its parameters in a Home – By Authors.

Illustration 02 – Spectrum of Spatial manifestations in a Home during a pandemic – By Authors.

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4. Survey & 2 live cases

The survey was conducted among 44 people of similar socio economic background. Out of which 43 be-long to the typical Indian family with children, living in apartments or group housing. The survey was conducted when the total lockdown was enforced in the city under study. All these findings are based on how the chosen set of homes and its inhabitants responded during the total lockdown situation. Many photographs are from the 2 author’s homes, as all they had were their homes to study. These photo-graphs are a direct reflection of the spaces when in use along with its inhabitants. They are no way close to the aesthetics of magazine photo-shoot outputs. But they explain the lives better in a home and during an unforeseen situation like the pandemic.

4.1. Findings based on Physical Manifestation:

The wall, roof and floor planes demarcate the physical boundaries of a space contained within the planes. (Ching, 2007)

4.1.1. Physical – boundaries

People feel their space is enough to accommodate the new spatial needs. The boundaries of the physi-cal manifestation don’t seem to bother the user according to the survey. The physical limitations never seemed to affect the everyday life, even if there is a pandemic scenario. It’s not the physical boundaries that restrict. Majority of them felt happy with their spaces. 88.6% of the responders in the survey felt they have large or ample amount of space to carry out their activities even during the time of pandemic.

In live case 01, Living and the dining room combined has become a makeshift space for morning walks to compensate for the restrictions imposed due to identification of Covid-19 positive cases, within the apartment complex. Restrictions include strict “no- walking/ jogging” instructions from the apartment association on instructions given by the Greater Chennai Corporation. (SECOND MASTER PLAN, FOR CHEN-NAI METROPOLITAN AREA, 2026 - Development Regulations, May, 2013).

Storage space requirement during lockdown has increased many folds to stock groceries, grains, snacks and other food items in lieu of possible shortages due to restrictions in transportation and freight move-ment. Time & space requirement in the kitchen has exceeded than usual.

4.1.2. Physical - functionality

Managing & running the house with limited supplies & threat of disease spread through supplies has been of prime concern. Washing, sun- drying supplies & trying amateur ways of disinfection at home be-

Fig set 01: Live case 01 – transformation of spatial boundaries.

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came the new chores. Excess emphasis emerged on hygiene and how we handle supplies that come into the home from outside. Balconies, terraces were all transformed to disinfectant zones. But still creative shuffling of functions in various spaces lead to better functioning of spaces.

In live case 1 & 2, bedrooms have doubled up as office space, study room, game room. Similarly their balconies now perform an additional function of being a temporary store for 24 hours to keep groceries, vegetables and other packed foods purchased during the lockdown/ pandemic so as to prevent any sort of spread of the virus.

4.1.3. Physical - qualitatively (can have a physiological dimension)

Comfort & wellbeing are the qualitative aspects of a physical enclosure. Air circulation, heat reduction, active means of cooling are all part of the person’s comfort levels inside a space. Thanks to certain byelaws which had left some open spaces within apartment premises & between blocks. This allows a bit of nature that is reachable and helps maintain comfort. Thermal comfort has brought in a few changes in the Chennai context, where mechanical cooling means are very prevalent. 36.4% of re-sponders feel that there is a change in spatial usage depending on the thermal comfort. Also in Live case 1, bedrooms have doubled up as office space, study room, game room owing to requirement of air conditioning for comfort during the office work and study activities (study done during the summer season).

4.1.4. Physical – beyond:

Always huge windows were aesthetically described by passionate architects as an element which con-nects the outside world to the inside. Not just large openings, even a small puncture of a window had provided so much relief. Peeping out of the window and spending some time near the window have become a common practice these days. People have stopped and started experiencing the small things, which architects glorified all along, during the course of the pandemic and its subsequent lockdown. With real estate boom and price hikes by various agents a piece of land can cost a huge sum. Even for upper middle class people apartments or the group housing is the only solution. The balcony, the terrace, the foyer, the windows are all being used to its fullest potential. Activities like flying home-made kites, terrace walking, gardening, etc., have all restarted. This marks the infinitum that can be achieved by an opening or a boundary which leads to the nature (beyond our homes).

Fig set 02: Live case 01 – spatial transformation for new activities.

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4.2. Findings based on Psychological Manifestation

Everyone had to keep up with their whole life and everything had to be done from home. This is a huge psychological task. The home is where happiness sustains, spatial quality do matters but psychological comfort doesn’t just evolve from the space. It involves various other factors.

4.2.1. Psychological - personal scale

Almost 52.3 % people are happy by being only at home, during this quarantine. And 63.3% of the respond-ers feel their home is a happy sustained home. But for the 36.3% the home is either a space for mere co-existence or a space of clash. Though some values are tying down the people to stay together, it cannot really be called a home. These people tend to take some time out for themselves, to clear their heads and find their balance. They have some “me spaces”, for their “me time”.

4.2.1.1. Gender & Psychology

Predominantly men’s role in daily chores is very less, Indian society being a patriarchal society. With increased emphasis on education of female children, the typical middle class family comprises of both spouses working, and managing the household and the family. In this respect the balance is tilted, never the less, being less favorable to the female gender. Further, the sense of the patriarchy remains, as propagated by the family of the husband as the quintessential requirement of the ideal daughter- in- law. The scenario has changed in many houses, due to the pandemic. But some remained the same, where as usual the other gender (women) had to juggle everything. Women tend to be more emotionally stressed than men in the discussed context. Some for instance try coping mechanisms like combining hobbies like listening to music along with the chores like cooking, cleaning, etc. In case02 author had

Fig set 02: Live case 01 – spatial transformation for new activities.

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brought in Google mini to sync music from phone and listen to music while cooking. Cooking in India is a time consuming chore leading to discomfort & stress, even with multiple technological advancements. Lockdown shut out the possibilities of having help for chores. Cooks and maids are common in India be-cause of the huge variation in the economic status. Without help author in live case 02 decided to blend her hobby with a painstaking chore extensively during the lockdown days.

4.2.2. Psychological - one to one

With zero travel time, and relatively less work pressure there is a direct co-relation to reduced stress and better psychological wellbeing reported across all media. However, the counter arguments of increased domestic violence and cases of divorce have also been reported widely. (Rise in cases of domestic vio-lence, 2020)Rise of strain in relationships can happen, similar to the rise of divorce rates in China. As China came out of the lockdown, lawyers saw a disturbing 25% increase in divorce rate. (China’s Divorce Spike Is a Warning to Rest of Locked-Down World, 2020)

4.2.3. Psychological - Whole - Coexisting as a family

80% of the people feel they have started spending more time with family than before. Invariable of the pressure of being within the same house, seeing the same family member for longer periods of time,

Fig 04: Live Case 02 – overlap of the 3 realms aiding in comfort & wellbeing.

Fig 05: Live case 01 – bonding as a family with games.

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family bonding does happen. 80% of this bonding is mainly because of the children present in the family who with their innocence and true nature, bond the whole family together. This is also directly relevant to the socio-economic stand of the person who can afford to work from home and doesn’t have any dif-ficulties in meeting daily needs. As seen in live case 1, bonding happens through games, etc., especially where a child is involved.

4.2.4. Psychological - Beyond

The emotional refuge spaces are applicable for people considering living in a happy sustained home as well. They help one to reflect, retrospect and escape beyond the surrounding into their own worlds. It helped one to pursue their hobbies like reading, gardening, etc. But these refuge spaces that highlighted the “me – time” were all semi open spaces. These spaces dwell in the beyond character of physical boundaries.

4.3. Findings based on Virtual Manifestation

Imagining lives of the middle class and upper middle class people without the internet, gadgets & tech-nology is impossible. So is imagining life in quarantine without the same. The virtual world though with a few drawbacks did help create awareness, keep sanity of people and ultimately helped people carry on with lives & connect with others. Home spaces have become a shrunk world.

4.3.1. Virtual – Awareness & Need

Select home deliveries were enabled even during quarantine to help sustain the basic needs. An Indian government app – Arogya Sethu, helps track our health and that of our locality. (Aarogya Setu app: Sur-veillance in times of coronavirus, 2020)

Fig set 06: Images (from survey) of refuge spaces created by inhabitants for spending quality ‘me time’.

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4.3.2. Virtual – Work & learn

Google classroom, zoom, WebEx, whatssap, etc., have helped to reclaim work and learning in the profes-sional & educational sectors. The educational sector explored these applications to its maximum, with webinars (free educational), group discussions, classes, assessments, etc. But this is a complete privilege which applies to the middle class and above, in India’s economic status.

4.3.3. Virtual – Entertainment & Social Media (&Beyond)

Technology has shrunk spaces & reduced distances. Virtually it can still connect us to our friends on Facebook & whatssap. Group video calls on whatssap, duo calls, facetime have taken us across thousands of kilometers to family & friends. Entertainment options like Netflix, gaming, etc., takes you a step fur-ther and indulge a person for hours in front of the screen.

4.3.4. Virtual - Negatives (&Beyond)

The virtual world has the capability to engross one into the screen and forget their surroundings. When used in need and wisely it could take one beyond to a different dimension with innumerable possibilities.

Conclusion.

People, their minds & bodies perceive spaces. Home and its spaces cannot be predefined nor can the activities be predetermined. Studying how people of a particular geographic region with almost similar socio-economic status use, respond and adapt to their homes during a pandemic throws light on nuances of spatial manifestations that we otherwise oversee while designing. Through the research, interpretations & writings the process of the spatial spectrum has evolved to be the right amount of balance among the manifestations and its related parameters.

Balancing the 3 spatial manifestations can bring about harmony, even in an unforeseen situation like pandemic. These manifestations have overlaps. What one might consider a physical manifesta-tion alone could have a strong psychological impact as well. The beyond factor, is where an infini-tum allows the person to expand, cope, adapt and re-evolve in his or her home. For instance here in the author’s case a virtual component of a simple music casting device in a physical boundary of a kitchen helped cope with physical and psychological stress, particularly when overburdened dur-

Fig set 07: Live Cases 01 & 02 - virtual learning of kids happening in bedroom.

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Illustration 02 – Spectrum of Spatial manifestations in a Home during a pandemic – By Authors.

ing the pandemic lockdown. Every manifestation of the space is vital and how as an inhabitant we respond to them is what brings about balance of life at home especially during a pandemic. This paper is one such step towards understanding the nuances of spaces in home.

Bibliography

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HEALTHIER LIVING SPACES.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

AND SCIENTIFIC-TECHNOLOGICAL

INNOVATION

WRITTEN BY

Clelia Maria BonardiDott.ssa in Architecture

51

Abstract

T he “social distancing” imposed by the COVID-19 health emergency has forci-bly triggered virtuous processes of rethinking the daily living spaces, called to face several needs and functions – which often happen simultaneously - to

be integrated with strict health restrictions. Human well-being, however, cannot be limited to his physical health and architecture, as an interpreter of the community needs, must contribute to the definition of future living spaces, especially through a multidisciplinary strategic approach.

This paper starts from some past experiences, albeit not strictly comparable to to-day’s pandemic, to provide both theoretical and design food for thought on the ar-chitectural and interior necessary transformations in the first place for safer and healthier and safer buildings and, at the same time, for a better quality and livabi-lity of the internal everyday life environments.

First of all, it is presented an in-depth analysis of some particularly smart archi-tectural solutions developed designing tuberculosis sanatoriums, created in close collaboration with technical and medical field experts. The reference, more specifi-cally, looks at the strategic-technological design of the buildings “opening facades” as the only contact and relationship points with the external environment as well as the fundamental modulators of natural aeration and lighting of the interiors. Moreover, it investigates how the designers developed the distribution solutions for the safety of medical personnel.

The second part deals with the problem of overcrowded domestic interiors in re-lation to the current constraint in one’s own home, gathering design ideas to help make these environments capable of combining, and at the same time keeping se-parate in a single space, the function of living with activities as work, sport, health, study and even free time of the different users of the house.

A final reflection is devoted to the potential of a multidisciplinary design capable of giving value and integrating an “automated” sanitizing approach to spaces in archi-tecture, based on models of scientific technological innovation.

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The lockdown caused by the Coronavirus emergency forced the population, who usually spends about 80% of their day

indoors (homes, offices, transports, shops, etc.), to spend 100% of their time inside their homes.

This constraint, especially if referred to ex-tremely prolonged time periods, emphasizes – first of all – the importance of environmen-tal health, not only from the point of view of sanitizing the spaces – a topic that will be fur-ther explored later -, but especially in terms of natural lighting and aeration: the aim is to preserve the body from unhealthy environ-ments that favor disease developments. Being forced to minimize the time spendable outsi-de domestic spaces brought the attention to the need to design and develop capable solu-tions able to define environments so versatile that can become, alternatively, both indoors and outdoors. An event like this prolonged lockdown pushes us to reflect on the way we should design and/or revisit our homes in re-ference, for example, to the typological and constructive impulse that occurred in respon-se to the architectural needs due to the tuber-culosis infection – one of the most pressing health problems in the early 20th Century. The reflections and the smart design solutions de-veloped in that case for the improvement of buildings intended for the sicks can today act as a model to be applied to our homes and habits, as well as to be translated from the original meaning to the definition of design solutions applied to the current historical con-text. It is therefore not a parallelism with the pandemic condition, as well as a reflection on architectural solutions which should be dee-pened and declined appropriately through the most recent modern knowledge and techno-logy. The tuberculosis infected patients’ need of fresh air, sunlight and hygiene has, as a matter of fact, strongly influenced these spa-ces architecture and interior design: by way of example, it’s interesting to analyze some design features of the “Villaggio Morelli” sa-natorium in Sondalo built in 1928 on Eugenio Morelli’ behalf (Teglio, 1881 – Rome, 1960), an expert physiologist. The complex in Valtelli-na, now partly abandoned and partly strate-gically reused for the rehabilitative isolation of Coronavirus recovering subjects, was desi-gned through the close collaboration of archi-tects, engineers and medical experts. The in-teresting aspect for this paper is not about the organization and internal distribution of the rooms of the complex, which are very similar to hospital rooms with two rows of three beds each adequately outdistanced for the spaces

liveability, but rather the fact that each room provided for a sophisticated system of highly detailed and flexible iron and wood door-win-dows, capable of responding to very diversi-fied lighting and ventilation interior needs. In particular, the large windowed walls, which can be opened in various versatile ways, could be rotated orthogonally to the facade through special rails, in order to become partitions on the healthcare common veranda and define a series of private loggias, nonetheless in con-stant communication with the others. It is an interesting architectural solution to extend private space and to relate to the outside and the nature. Even if at that time this strategy was related to concepts of discipline and pri-vacy, an adequate rethought could now take on new features, especially in respect of the inevitable “social distancing”. In fact, during and after a period of forced quarantine insi-de an apartment, it is instinctive to think of combining housing solutions able to develop the equivalent of an outdoor space inside your home, like a small garden – a trend that will be discussed later – or a loggia/terrace at your disposal. This example invites us to reflect on the potential and importance of an adequate strategic- technological design about the ap-propriate realization of windows, verandas, loggias and, more generally, of “openable fa-cades” as tools for the fundamental modula-tion of light and air, as well as being the only communication bridge with the external en-vironment.

A second interesting aspect of sanatorium de-sign concerns the distribution solutions spe-cifically developed for internal movements and strategically differentiated between the so-called “dirty” and “clean” routes. The in-ternal distribution system provided for diffe-rent parallel corridors for doctors and patien-ts: thanks to the solutions adopted healthy medical personnel could move safely overall the buildings and reach individual patients’ rooms independently. On the other side, pa-tients walked their spaces, from the rooms to the healthcare common verandas, in comple-te freedom, without risks to the staff’s heal-th. Thinking about today’s urgency for health security, an adequate analysis of these distri-bution solutions can provide design ideas not only for new specialized medical departmen-ts, but also for the management of all those spaces involved in large population flows and, moreover, for buildings safety used for the pa-tients’ rehabilitation after intensive care and asymptomatic subjects who tested positive for the virus, such as hotels and restaurants. This would also make it possible to isolate certain

Sanatorium of Sondalo, interior view of a 6-bed INPS roomveranda (Archivio Storico AOVV, Presidio Ospedaliero di Sondalo) in D. Del Curto, Conservare l’architettura del XX secolo. Esperienze di tutela e riuso al Villaggio di Sondalo, 2014 p. 93.

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rooms from others if necessary; a precaution that may also be necessary within individual homes in the case of large family aggrega-tions.

The sanatoriums experience also highlights the importance for human health of contact with natural environments, both through a direct or indirect use of greenery and nature: it is no coincidence, in fact, that numerous institutes for the care of this disease was bu-ilt close to the Alps. If the attention to the so- called Biophilic Design and its use in business spaces is a well known and increasing factor, these months of “social distancing” and home constraint have again highlighted the urgency of a design that integrates green into archi-tecture and interiors, especially when there is no direct contact with nature as it can be in cities apartments. A significant increase can be envisaged around the theme of gardening and new ways to incorporate green plants into homes. Indoor gardening and vertical gardens are a proven way to reduce stress and improve indoor air quality. We should consider the po-tential in terms of sustainability and buildin-gs energy efficiency of bioclimatic greenhou-ses design and, above all, it can’t go unnoticed the increase recorded not only in the presence of plants and flowers on balconies, but also in the cultivation of vegetable gardens on priva-te terraces and the benefits that this develop-ment implies for human and environmental health. Indoor cultivation, however, requires the design of specific dedicated domestic are-as: small indoor spaces equipped with artifi-cial light, air and water to grow vegetables. Biophilic Design and indoor cultivation could go from being a trend to a real necessity.

If on the one hand, this first reflection inter-venes more on the relationship between the building and the space that surrounds it and on how to integrate nature within the homes; on the other hand, a second study must be addressed to the domestic spaces inside the homes themselves and to the change they are forced to face in order to respond in a care-ful and versatile way to the needs of both the individual and the widespread situations of excessive household crowding.

If on the one hand, this first reflection inter-venes on the relationship between buildings and the space that surrounds them and on how to integrate nature within homes; on the other hand, a second thought must be addres-sed to the domestic spaces inside the houses themselves and to the change they are forced to face in order to respond in a careful and

versatile way to the needs of both the indivi-dual and the widespread situations of excessi-ve crowded homes. The problem, in fact, does not only concern the significantly increased smart working activity, but also the need to agree it with family needs which are also very different among children, students, workers and the elderly, sometimes all at once in the same house. In recent years, there has been an increasingly specialized smart offices desi-gn through solutions meant to make the work environment more dynamic and comfortable, so that the time spent in the office does not make you regret the comforts of your home. In the face of the health emergency, however, with the spread of smart working, has beco-me evident the need to reverse this trend and, on the contrary, to rethink domestic spaces as so-called smart homes, environments ca-pable of combining, and at the same time of keeping separate in a single environment, the living function and work, sports, health, study and leisure activities. This problem becomes even more urgent when thought in relation to numerous people forced within too small spa-ces. The experience gained in the smart offi-ces, far from unsuccessful, can provide solid starting points, albeit not definitive answers, for this transformation, exemplifying solu-tions for a versatile, multifunctional and te-chnological environments, resulting from the combination of architecture, interior design and innovation. Over time, in fact, in the large offices open spaces have been developed solu-tions able to optimize spaces flexibility, which can now be revisited for home interiors. First of all, the mobile partition systems, such as furniture elements, equipped walls and mul-tifunctional panels integrated with acoustic insulation technology, which allow to divide the domestic environment into independent sub-units that can be quickly adapted to dif-ferent personal needs. The prolonged qua-rantine has highlighted the importance of privacy and isolation, not only for work, but also for adequate moments of privacy and re-lax. For this purpose, when the possibility of completely revising the layout of the house by dividing the large domestic open spaces into separate and independent environments, in-sulated sofas and lighting systems combined with sound-absorbing panels would give the possibility of carving out private corners in the homes, answering to the individuals’ needs of privacy, tranquility and concentration. Tech-nology and wi-fi connectivity, fundamental factors of smart working and home studying, but now also of training – think, for example, of home trainers for cycling or smart fitness

The veranda of the Sanatorium of Sondalo. Photo by Lorenzo Paolo Rosa©, from Milan (www.loreph.it), taken in August 2018. FONTE: HTTPS://MUSEODEISANATORI.COM/GALLERIA/

Sanatorium of Sondalo, detail of the windowed walls rails. Photo by Alessio Gioana©, from Turin, taken in May 2017. FONTE: HTTPS://MUSEODEISANATORI.COM/GALLERIA/

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equipment – and in the future more and more of health monitoring through telemedicine, must be increasingly discreet and integra-ted into partitions, seats, desks and in the structural components of the space. Another technology that was already spreading within individual homes in recent years, but which could now be revised and increased in the li-ght of the health crisis, is the one of voice con-trols, which could be used on a larger scale, making it unnecessary handles and buttons physical contacts. As a further consequence, we can hypothesize the growing diffusion of solutions that make the individual home in-creasingly independent from the surrounding world: from spaces used as pantry and storage to sustainable solutions for water, heat and

electricity supply.

However, in addition to the potential advan-tages of a strategic transposition of the offices architectural and technological design solu-tions inside homes, we must not lose sight of some intrinsic risk factors in the remote work carried out from one’s home, especially if en-gaged in everyday life in a sudden way and in conditions of forced quarantine like today. On the one hand, in fact, smart working, the only solution that can be adopted in this pha-se of health emergency, favors the flexibility of working hours, the independence of the worker and the quality of the final product, but on the other hand an inadequate planning of the house spaces declined as offices risks

Descrizione del processo di funzionamento della fotocatalisi, in I.R. BELLOBONO, F. GROPPI, Photocatalytic membrane processes, and respective modelling, for removal of pharmaceutical residues in wastewaters. A case study with 2-[2,6-(dichlorophenyl)amino]phenyl acetic acid as model molecule, 2017. / How the photocatalysis purification works, in I.R. BELLOBONO, F. GROPPI, Photocatalytic membrane processes, and respective modelling, for removal of pharmaceutical residues in wastewaters. A case study with 2-[2,6-(dichlorophenyl)amino]phenyl acetic acid as model molecule, 2017.

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Bibliography

AA.VV., Villaggio Morelli. La bellezza che guarisce, “Le Montagne divertenti”, n. 24, primavera 2013, pp. 10-31.

DEL CURTO, Davide, Conservare l’architettura del XX secolo. Esperienze di tutela e riuso al Villaggio di Sondalo, in L. Bone-sio, D. Del Curto, G. Menini (a cura di), Una questione di paesaggio. Il Villaggio Morelli e la Valtellina, Mimesis Edizioni, Milano – Udine 2014, pp. 85-111.

DEL CURTO, Davide, La costruzione della rete sanatoriale italiana, in L. Bonesio, D. Del Curto (a cura di), Il Villaggio Morelli. Identità paesaggistica e patrimonio monumentale, Edizioni Diabasis, Reggio Emilia 2011, pp. 189-224.

BONARDI, Clelia Maria, Uffici da vivere / Offices you can live in, Lifestyle, Abitare, vol. 592, RCS MediaGroup, Milano, Marzo 2020, pp. 114-121.

BELLOBONO, Ignazio Renato, FORTUNA, Massimo Domenico, Anti-bacterial and self-cleaning ceramic enamels to obtain a liquid ceramic enamel, and photocatalytic ceramic membranes, Ital. (2014), IT 1407751 B1 20140507.

BELLOBONO, Ignazio Renato, Photochemical degradation of organic and inorganic pollutants by immobilized titania pho-tocatalytic membranes, photocatalysts prepared by photoengagement on polymeric supports, Ital. Appl. (1994), 46 pp. CODEN:ITXXCZ; IT92.

BELLOBONO, I.R., GIANTURCO, F., CHIODAROLI, C.M., Pilot-plant photomineralization of volatile organic compounds in air, by photocatalytic membranes immobilising titanium dioxide and promoting photocatalysts, Fresenius Environmental Bulletin, vol. 6, 1997, pp. 469-474.

BELLOBONO, Ignazio Renato, GROPPI, Flavia, Photocatalytic membrane processes, and respective modelling, for removal of pharmaceutical residues in wastewaters. A case study with 2-[2,6-(dichlorophenyl)amino]phenyl acetic acid as model molecule, Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, ScienceDirect 2017, pp. 69–77.

undermining the fundamental balance betwe-en work commitment and leisure/domesticity time. We therefore underline the importan-ce of adequate hierarchization and strategic differentiation of domestic spaces in order to face at least some of these problems and the need for work-free zones inside homes.

As previously said, in addition to the alrea-dy developed design aspects, the coronavirus presence obliges us to pay more attention to safeguarding environmental health from the point of view of the environments care and cleaning according with the issue of Indoor Air Quality, which is becoming of increasing relevance. It is therefore an increased interest in environments sanitation, from monitoring the indoor air to water and air filtration sy-stems, in addition to materials self-cleaning technologies. In this context, therefore, the architectural project will have to include tech-niques such as the use of paints and/or pho-tocatalytic membranes that use UV radiation to decompose the pollutant to substances that are not harmful to interior finishes and forced ventilation systems that are becoming incre-asingly popular. Another example is related to the PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) treat-ments of thin films to be applied on surfaces

and on points of possible social contact such as handles and lights buttons-switches, as well as smart toilets design, which is quickly developing. These technological applications contribute significantly to the reduction of ri-sks not only inside homes, but also in realities such as offices, hotels, restaurants and more or less crowded spaces of everyday life.

In conclusion, what we can draw from this period of social isolation imposed by the pan-demic emergency is a substantial theoretical and design rethinking of the spaces of daily living, to be obtained through a multidiscipli-nary strategic approach. Future architectural projects will be focused on the usability and li-vability of the internal environments of daily living and on the essential importance of en-vironmental health, to be achieved both on design bases and on scientific-technological innovation models.

THE CHANGE IN INTERIOR SPACE

AND THE CONCEPT OF WELL-BEING IN RELATION TO THE

NEW CORONAVIRUS

WRITTEN BY

Nilufer Saglar Onay

59

Abstract

T he spread of the new Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has greatly changed our ways of living until it has started to expand to countries all over the world. Iso-lation and social distancing have become key aspects to stop the spread of

the virus while homes have become extremely important as refugee from the out-side world, a territory of protection, where all needs have to be fulfilled. Although isolated, it has become important to act together without slightest exception. How did all these changes affect interiors and the concept of well-being related to space? In a situation like this, how can interior design create solutions that can improve people’s well-being?

This study aims to evaluate the changes in the concept of well-being in interior spa-ce related to the new Coronavirus using the recently proposed well-being framework for interiors (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018) composed of contextual, functional, psychological, social, sensory, aesthetic and ergonomic requirements. The evalua-tion of well-being requirements through this methodological approach will help to understand how interior design can respond to the changes caused by the Corona-virus and how interiors can support our well-being regarding all the requirements discussed through the framework. This can also increase consciousness about the multifaceted nature of well-being and its innate relatedness to interior space.

The temporary character of interior design becomes an advantage while we think about its capability to support human activity as human needs and expectations can change very rapidly. Regarding rapid change, the spread of the Coronavirus is one of the most significant examples humankind has confronted. In a situation like this, interior design has the potential to give faster responses and adapt living environments to new requirements.

KEYWORDS: INTERIOR SPACE, CORONAVIRUS, WELL-BEING REQUIREMENTS.

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Introduction

I t is obvious that the spread of the new Coro-navirus SARS-CoV-2 is changing and will go on changing our ways of living. This consid-

erable change forces us to rethink living environ-ments together with the concept of well-being. Even if a vaccine or effective medicine can be found, the fact of having experienced such a striking spread will cause constant transformations in our lives, as we will feel the need to be prepared for similar threatening circumstances that can hit humankind in the near future. This need will necessitate reeval-uating the whole built environment starting from urban scale to interior scale.

The new Coronavirus has been a great challenge for humankind. During the last centuries, in western societies the role of the individual and its indepen-dence gained more importance while in ancient times the individual’s health happiness was regard-ed as a phenomenon more related to the society. Oliver (2020) discusses that the age of the individual must end and our world depends on it. The more we see ourselves as discrete entities, the more likely we are to feel isolated and lonely and to show “self-ish” behaviours. As a consequence, rates of anxiety and depression are rising across the world, while the climate and biodiversity crises deepen ever fur-ther (Oliver, 2020). Recently also the Coronavirus has shown us the importance of the individual as a part of the society. We have seen that we can come over serious problems only if we act all together.

From this perspective the health and well-being of all individuals and societies of the world depends on other individuals and societies. So, the role and responsibility of the individual as a part of the so-ciety and the ecosystem needs to be re-evaluated as we have seen that the path that has been followed for hundreds of years has not brought positive out-comes. Although well-being in itself is subjective and it differs from person to person, at the point that we have arrived it is difficult to think of in-dividual well-being as a process independent from the rest of the world and independent from other people and other societies.

Well-being and interior space after the coronavirus

In this article it is aimed to discuss how might in-teriors respond to the changes caused directly and indirectly by the coronavirus in the near future. As we still don’t know how the virus will evolve and how our responses will be shaped, future projec-tions are difficult to construct. Moreover there is a lack of scientific research related to all aspects of human well-being related to the new Coronavirus. Therefore, it is very important to start working with methodological approaches. The recently proposed well-being framework for interiors (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018) (Figure 1) handles the issue of well-being in a comprehensive way structuring all the requirements that contribute to well-being related to space. In this sense the framework can

fig. 1 - Well-being Framework for Interiors (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018).

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be used as a methodological guide to consider the changes, problems and possible solutions in inte-rior spaces related to the Coronavirus.

Boyden, in his research in 1971, distinguishes be-tween “survival needs” and “well-being” needs. Sur-vival needs deal with aspects of the environment that directly affect human health, such as clear air and water, lack of pathogens or toxins, and oppor-tunity for rest and sleep. Well-being needs, on the other hand, are more indirect in their locus of im-pact. These needs affect overall health through their relationship to fulfilment, quality of life, and psy-chological health. Where failure to satisfy survival needs may lead to serious illness or death, failure to satisfy the well-being needs produces the “grey life” of psychosocial maladjustment and stress re-lated illnesses. In this sense, protection against the new Coronavirus and similar diseases that can hit the human population can be associated with both survival and well-being needs.

The well-being framework for interiors (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018) is intended to be used both as an evaluation method for existing envi-ronments and a roadmap for designing new living environments that can promote well-being. The structure of the framework is based on contextual, functional, psychological, social, sensory, aesthetic and ergonomic requirements, which are always in relation to each other. Connection to context has an important role as the factor that makes every in-terior unique with its location and relationship to

the rest of the world. Functional requirements are concerned with creating spatial solutions that sup-port human activities. Psychological requirements are more indirect as they deal with the outcomes of the interaction between human and space. Social requirements deal with the spatial opportunities for the level of interaction between people. Sensory requirements are concerned with both quantitative factors like heating, illumination, acoustics, sound control etc. and their reflections on human senses. Aesthetic requirements are also important as they refer to the integrity and harmony of all spatial el-ements that can be pleasing to human senses and can promote well-being. Ergonomic requirements are more concrete and they refer to the relation-ship between all interior components and human body and capabilities (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018).

Connection to context

Connection to context is the most important de-sign input that creates architectural and spatial identity by differentiating buildings/spaces with context related data. While we consider context of a building, it is important to discuss two basic di-mensions, which are location and relationship to surroundings (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018). The new Coronavirus lets us re-consider certain as-pects of connection to context such as gradual (or controlled) entrance (passage from public to semi-private and private space), contact with nature,

fig. 2 - Turkish house entrance space “Hayat” (Ulukavak Harputlugil & Çetintürk, 2005).

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natural ventilation, daylight, natural exposure to sunlight, etc.

Gradual connection between the interior and the surrounding environment is a key aspect in order to carry out the routine cleaning and sanitization in living environments. The existence of a court-yard in the form of a semi-private and private open space and an entrance hall as the continua-tion of private interior space is very important in terms of organizing this passage. Vernacular living environments of eastern societies are often rich in terms of these spatial organisations. The Turkish house can be good example for this gradual con-nection. The entrance called “Hayat” connects the ground floor to private upper floors. The ground floor represents the continuation of the courtyard and garden and all the sanitization and prepara-tion takes place here before going up to the inde-pendent family rooms (Figure 2). The layout of con-temporary housing units in Turkey also respects this general principle and they usually have a sep-arate entrance hall, which is left out of the circula-tion path that connects the rest of the rooms.

Another key aspect of well-being in relation to context is contact with nature. A growing body of knowledge supports the role of contact with nature in human well-being. In a situation of social iso-lation and stress like the one of Coronavirus, the healing effect of natural aspects is a very impor-tant contribution to well-being. Regarding living environments contact with nature can be evalu-ated in urban, architectural and interior levels.

This necessitates handling the issue in an inter-disciplinary way including professionals working at different scales.

Kellert (2005) notes that contact with nature has been found to enhance recovery from illness, that people living in proximity to open spaces report fewer health and social problems as well as supe-rior quality of life and a stronger sense of place, that office settings with natural environmental features improve worker performance and moti-vation (Freeman, 2017). Kamitsis and Francis (2013) argue that engagement with nature, through both direct sensory exposure and a sense of connected-ness, has been shown to have a positive effect on psychological health although the mechanisms mediating these effects remain obscure. In this sense interiors need to get advantage of the sur-rounding natural environment as much as pos-sible. If not, another solution can be enriching surrounding open-air areas like terraces and bal-conies with green arrangements or even creating interior gardens.

Especially in home environments, the need for private and semi-private extensions is becoming inevitable. We have seen that during the period of complete lockdown, balconies have become the breathing places for people as their only concrete ties with the outside world. Even before the Coro-navirus outbreak, the research of Minucciani and Saglar Onay (2020) based on a questionnaire about the importance of certain aspects of contextual ties conducted in two different cultural contexts; Istan-

fig. 3 - Preferences for relationship to context, Italy and Turkey (Minucciani & Saglar Onay, 2020)

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bul (Turkey) and Turin (Italy) have already shown that in both cities, large openings and outdoor extensions are considered much more important than other aspects (Figure 3). So, it can be foreseen that with the effect of the Coronavirus, openings with deep perspectives and outdoor spaces will become even more important especially in dense neighbourhoods and city centres.

Natural ventilation and natural exposure to direct sunlight are other important aspects that can be extremely beneficial for the natural sanitization of interiors. According to Atkinson & others (2009), lack of ventilation or low ventilation rates are associated with increased infection rates or out-breaks of airborne diseases and high ventilation rates could decrease the risk of infection. On the other hand no information exists on the impact of ventilation rate on transmission of droplet-transmitted diseases like the new Coronavirus. According to a very recent research examining an outbreak of 2019 novel Coronavirus disease in an air-conditioned restaurant in Guangzhou, China, authors underlined that in this outbreak, droplet transmission was prompted by air-conditioned ventilation and the key factor for infection was the direction of the airflow as samples from the air conditioner (3 from the air outlet and 3 from the air inlet) were negative for Coronavirus. In this sense it is difficult to say that air-conditioning sys-tems can store the virus and spread it to the air. But the airflow created by the air-conditioner can be an important factor in carrying the virus to the people who are on the airflow path. On the other hand the same can be also valid for the airflow created by natural ventilation. In this sense it is important to evaluate the issue with well-struc-tured research findings.

Considering contact with nature it is also impor-tant to discuss the importance of daylight in living environments. On an emotional level, people en-joy and feel a sense of well-being in daylight and sunlight. Natural light makes us aware of the pas-sage of time: the specific mechanisms of this in-teraction are not entirely understood, but our bod-ies are naturally in tune with external light levels and characteristics. As well as the photoreceptors responsible for vision, the eye contains sensors, which detect the blueness of daylight. Therefore, the colour and intensity of the light that we experi-ence influences the secretion of hormones, includ-

ing melatonin and serotonin, which regulate our circadian rhythms (Green Building Council, 2016).

Functional requirements

Functional requirements differ according to main functions associated with interior spaces. For a certain interior, the functional requirements may effect the organization of all interior elements such as furniture, lighting etc. (Saglar Onay & Mi-nucciani, 2018).

The Coronavirus will have different effects on spaces with public and private intention. For pub-lic interiors the most important challenge is on so-cial distancing and hygiene while for private space especially homes the focus is on flexibility and other aspects that have direct or indirect effects on psychological well-being.

The importance of social distancing is already be-ing deeply discussed for the workplace and school environments. The organisation of furniture is a very important factor in determining the neces-sary physical distance for potential user’s intended activities and their way of performing these activi-ties. On the other hand it is obvious that the neces-sity to increase distance between individuals will require more space than before, which is not easy to systematize in a very short period of time. Before the reopening of schools in Japan, the Ministry of Health released guidelines for school reopening which include maintaining physical distance (Fig-ure 4). The ministry also proposed holding classes in smaller groups using several classrooms, pro-viding boxed school lunches rather than having students serve food to each other and avoiding group sports (Japantimes News, 2020, March 24).

Other fundamental changes will then be applied in the organization of public interiors like shop-ping centers, restaurants, cinemas etc. and also temporary meetings like indoor fairs and festi-vals. Public interiors in general are very important components of well-being generating the ground for social and psychological needs. In this sense it is very important to define the measures that will enable their future involvement in public life. Regarding the workplace, the organisation and necessity of the open space remains as a question mark. It seems that working from home will be

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more common especially for work activities that do not require place bonded production and getting together. This also necessitates the functional re-valuation of home environments.

Homes need to be more flexible than ever as they need to answer to different functional needs of dif-ferent family members. According to a recent re-search (Minucciani & Saglar Onay, 2020) in home environments, spaces related to domestic activity sets such as eating, cooking, sitting, sleeping and personal care are regarded as the most important

and indispensible components. But now with the effect of the virus also work related activities are becoming essential for home environments.

The research project Recoding Homes (Saglar Onay, Garip & Garip, 2019) emerges from the idea that interior spaces can be differentiated accord-ing to user needs and future inhabitants of hous-ing settlements can be provided with customized and ready-to-live interior environments. Furniture solutions are an indispensible part of the design model as they complete the idea of spatial flex-

Figure 4: New pupils wearing face masks attend a welcome ceremony while maintaining social distance in Yokohama, Japan, on April 6, 2020. Source: The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images.

Figure 5: Re-Coding Homes Research Project searching for modular interior design solutions that can be configured in different ways in order to support changing domestic activities.

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ibility by allowing numerous configurations that support different activities (Figure 5). Such flexible design solutions can be useful in order to adapt interiors to different uses especially when dealing with minimal interiors. So, with the new functional expectations imposed to living environ-ments with the Coronavirus, the solution might be applying similar multi-functional approaches to interiors.

Ergonomic Requirements

The development of ergonomics followed two different ap-proaches: one has its origin in health and safety, the oth-er in human performance (Koningsveld, Settels & Pikaar, 2007). Regarding architectural space, ergonomy can also be discussed in these two basic aspects including both the appropriateness of all equipment and its efficiency for the fulfilment of human activity. Therefore, ergonomic require-ments in interiors are related to the connection between human and space, mainly including physical and cognitive aspects, which help to fulfil a certain task. While physical ergonomics relate to physical activity mainly concerned with human anatomical, anthropometric, psychological and biomechanical characteristics, cognitive ergonomics focuses on mental processes regarding interactions among humans and surroundings (Salvendy, 2012) (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018).

It is likely that the Coronavirus will also change many de-sign objects in terms of their ergonomic attributes. Especial-ly in common areas, avoiding direct contact with hands will be an important design input. Especially for hand hygiene, sensing technology is an emerging evidence-based strate-gy. This understanding will not only effect the features of sanitizing equipment but in time we will feel the need to re-evaluate all interior features that support our activities leading to a more contactless way of interacting with the surrounding environment. Smartphone control for elimi-nating contact with switches etc., contactless bathroom technology, motion activated lighting, automatic doors and many other solutions that enable contactless interaction will be more common.

The need for complete and easy cleaning will be another input for furniture design and interior details. A hygienic furniture specialist company has introduced a new range of cupboard units designed to reduce cleaning times, whilst eliminating trap points where dirt and contaminants could build up. The design of more easy to clean, hygienic fur-niture will necessitate evaluating general geometric attri-butes, materials, finishings and way of interaction with human body. For example the height of furniture from the ground especially for couches or kitchen units can be an im-

portant consideration for floor hygiene. The elimination of joints and details with non-accessible surfaces is another important point. It is also important to consider the innate hygienic properties of materials used for surfaces that are especially in contact with hands.

Of course the ergonomic re-evaluation of interior compo-nents do not only concern hygiene. The need for social dis-tancing will also affect the overall design of furniture ac-cording to the related activities and the way of performing them. In this sense if the virus continues to be a threat for a longer time, the design features of furniture and accessories in public spaces and their layout will play an important role in maintaining the necessary distance between individuals.

In home environments, the need for flexibility and the ne-cessity to rethink spaces for multifunctional uses will also affect the overall design and consequently the ergonomic attributes of furniture.

Social Requirements

According to Keyes and Shapiro (2004), social well-being has 5 dimensions including social integration (the quality of one’s relationship to society), social contribution (evalu-ation of one’s value to society), social coherence (percep-tion of the quality, organization and operation of the social world), social actualization (evaluation of the potential and the trajectory of society) and social acceptance (construal of society through the character and qualities of other people as a generalized category). Although they seem unrelated to space, our activities promoting social well-being are di-rectly affected by spatial properties. The spatial aspects of social well-being are related to qualities that enrich social life. In this sense, buildings should provide the chance for social encounters at desired level for everyone (Minucciani & Saglar Onay, 2020). On the other hand ‘Social distancing’ has emerged as the principal line of defence in humanity’s fight against the novel Coronavirus. The rhetoric of ‘social distancing’ has usefully heightened popular consciousness of how individual actions can affect population health, driv-ing people away from spaces posing high levels of epidemio-logical risk (Long, 2020). However, according to Long (2020), the current emphasis on ‘distance’ and ‘isolation’ has led to portfolios of measures so unpalatable that they may be rejected as ‘unliveable’ by the very people they are designed to protect, only coming to fruition if repressive state force literally coerces people to stay within their homes.

It is obvious that the above-mentioned dimensions of social well-being are very difficult to obtain in a situation of social distancing. If the state of distancing is defined for a limited

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time, it might not have serious effects on individu-als. But if this period becomes longer and longer and the end to it cannot be foreseen, the level of social well-being will most likely be affected in a severe way. The use of social media can be evalu-ated as a virtual way of social interaction and can also contribute to social life if used correctly. Ac-cording to Shklovski, Kiesler and Kraut, (2006) In-ternet adoption in homes has grown rapidly since the early 1990 and it is a communication technol-ogy, with the potential to change peoples’ social in-teraction and one important implication of the In-ternet’s migration to homes and its predominant use for communication is that it could change people’s social interaction with their closest ties. According to the first national survey conducted in the United States by Katz & Aspden (1995), internet users had more total contact with family members than non- users, and that they made more new friends, including those they talked with or met on the Internet. On the other hand, Kraut, Lund-mark, Patterson, Kiesler, Mukopadhyay & Scherlis (1998) launched a longitudinal study of Internet use in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and they report-ed that participants who used the Internet more showed declines in face-to-face communication with family, smaller social circles, and higher lev-els of loneliness, stress, and depressive symptoms. Regarding studies with different and even contrary findings, the effect of Internet on social well-being is not very clear. Considering the important but

still uncertain role of Internet in social interac-tion and well-being, recently Minucciani and Sa-glar Onay (2020) have tried to evaluate the prefer-ence of different social interaction types in home environments through a questionnaire related to social interaction through collective activities, the communication of social identity and the possibil-ity for social interaction through Internet. The re-sults of the survey showed that having rooms and spaces suitable to invite friend, neighbours etc. is absolutely the most important requirement in living spaces (Figure 6). Communication of social identity was the second important requirement while social interaction through Internet was not regarded as important as others. In this case the insignificance of Internet represents a stronger tendency towards spatial social interaction. This strongly supports the idea that isolation and lack of social interaction in longer time periods is not sustainable and social media alone is not enough to provide the necessary level of social well-being.

Psychological Requirements

Self-determination theorists (Deci & Ryan, 1985, Ryan & Deci, 2000), maintain that well-being hing-es on the fulfilment of three basic innate psycho-logical needs which are defined as:

Competence: Seek to control the outcome and expe-rience mastery

fig. 6 - Evaluation of the positive effect of certain social contact types in living environments (Minucciani, Saglar Onay, 2020).

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Relatedness: desire to interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others

Autonomy: desire to be causal agents of one’s own life and act in harmony with one’s integrated self.

The most important negative impact of the Coro-navirus has been on people’s psychological well-being as it has increased rates of anxiety and de-pression of the public. These increased rates could very easily develop a potent psychiatric disorder over a long period of time. Isolation and wide-spread economic damage caused many people to become psychologically troubled (Ahmed, Ahmed, Aibao, Hanbin, Siyu & Ahmad, 2020). As the spread has caused uncertainty in economic and social life, it has negatively affected people’s ability to control outcomes. It had also affected feelings of relatedness partially breaking concrete interaction and decreasing people’s ability to care for others and to be cared. Moreover it has negatively affect-ed autonomy in people’s decisions and activities. In this sense the innate psychological needs have become extremely difficult to be fulfilled. In a situ-ation like this the role of architecture and design is important but limited.

In terms of psychological well-being it is essential to underline the importance of the home territory, especially in a situation of obligatory distancing like the Coronavirus. In terms of psychological well-being, home is different and more important than other territories because of its great potential to fulfil the three basic psychological needs. Act-ing upon one’s own environment gives a sense of achievement and control making home a place for self-expression and for freedom of action. Home also represents refugee from the outside world, a place where one can control the level of social interaction and regulate the level of privacy and interdependence (Meesters, 2009). In this sense home environments need to be designed in a way that people will be able to reflect their ways of liv-ing and thinking. In this way it can be possible for people to build well-being for themselves in their very own territory giving them a strong sense of control, autonomy and protection. In a broader de-sign perspective, this also corresponds to visions and notions like continuous design and unfinished design, which strengthens the connection with identity or rather, a process of identification of ar-ticulation of affect. Connected to this idea, creative

activity can also be a kind of therapy that is sup-ported by the interior environment. Recently, neu-roscientists are learning that creativity has been a survival function in the evolution of the human brain suggesting that opportunities for creative activity are also very important for human well-being (IOM, 2007). Creative activity is often charac-terized by producing a unique outcome (Amabile, 1983), and it is likely to result in greater perceived control over outcomes (Eschleman, Madsen, Alar-con & Barelka, 2014). Regarding the issue of control, a great deal of research has shown that, for diverse groups and situations, sense of control is an im-portant factor influencing stress levels and well-being (Steptoe & Appels, 1989; Ulrich, 1991). Sup-porting these views, Miller and Kälviäinen (2006), discuss that designing for well-being is to design the (metaphorical) space that enables people to ‘do well-being’ for themselves.

Sensory requirements

Sensory requirements are extremely effective on well-being. Ventilation, lighting, heating, cooling and acoustics are issues to be handled with special expertise. Interior designers need to pay attention both on ways to fulfil these requirements and their effects on human senses. The qualities created by the use of materials can also be evaluated in terms of sensory input (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018).

Recently the importance of ventilation, the exis-tence of direct indoor sunlight, the probable nega-tive effect of air-conditioning systems and the effect of temperature levels have been discussed related to the Coronavirus. All these different di-mensions of well-being are to be investigated through well-structured research. On the other side it is possible to consider natural ventilation, indoor sunlight, appropriate humidity as positive factors related to protection against infectious dis-eases. According to Moriyama, Hugentobler and Iwasaki (2020), relative humidity (RH, or Satura-tion Ratio: the state of vapor equilibrium in room air) affects all infectious droplets with respiratory viruses, independent of their source (respiratory tract or aerosolized from any fluid) and location (in air or settled on surfaces). Humidification of in-door air to maintain humidity to 40–60% relative humidity at room temperature is proved to reduce infection rates. More recently, a study in Minneso-

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ta proved that humidifying preschool classrooms during January to March to 45% RH results in a significant reduction in the total number of influ-enza virus and viral genome copies found in the air and on objects compared to control classrooms (Reiman & others, 2018).

Materials can be also associated with sensory requirements. The use of non-porous and easy to clean materials has considerable positive out-comes in terms of hygiene. Some materials are even inherently antimicrobial, meaning they can weaken or kill the disease-causing organism be-fore it can infect anyone. Biosecurity measures during an outbreak like the one we are seeing now will make use of antimicrobial materials, personal protective equipment, thorough cleaning routines and vigilant waste management to reduce the risk of the virus spreading (Tan, 2020). Decisions about materials have also significant importance as they can affect all sensory input both physically and psychologically. A change in materials can alter the feeling of a room, colour and the level of illu-mination as well (Minucciani & Saglar Onay, 2020).

Aesthetic Requirements

Aesthetic requirements affect the way people feel depending on spatial aspects, furniture and objects. According to IOM (2007), in order to be healthy, people need an interesting and aestheti-cally pleasing environment, sensory stimulation similar to that found in the natural environment. Aesthetic judgement in interiors is related to all physical and sensorial aspects of space and it is highly subjective and also based on cultural back-ground (Saglar Onay & Minucciani, 2018).

The aesthetic quality of space is often associated to its atmosphere, which is defined as characteristic manifestations of the co-presence of subject and object by Böhme (1993). Böhme, argues that it is necessary to understand atmospheres not as sepa-rate from things and people. Thus, atmosphere ‘is the reality of the perceived as the sphere of its presence and the reality of the perceiver, insofar as in sensing the atmosphere s/he is bodily pres-ent in a certain way’. According to Pennarz (1999), atmosphere manifests itself as a double sided pro-cess: the atmosphere of a room works on an in-dividual and conversely an individual projects his or her specific mood on the room. In this sense

the manmade potential qualities of architectural characteristics are transformed into “effective en-vironment” on condition of being empowered on the individual conceptual level. Therefore, we can understand the atmospheres as emergent from processes of making. That is from the encounters between people, materials and other elements of the environments of which they are part (e.g. air, light, warmth, scents). Atmospheres are not as such products but they are produced or emergent ongoingly as people improvise their ways through the world (Pink & Mackley, 2016).

The works of Russell (1980) and Russell and Pratt (1980), identifying the main affective responses manifested by individuals in relation to their physical environments propose a model of affect that incorporates just two bipolar dimensions, considered as independent, to explain the varia-tions in quality and intensity of environmental af-fect: the factors of pleasure and arousal, relevant dimensions proposed by Berlyne (1974) in the ex-planation of aesthetic judgements. According to the research different combinations of pleasure and arousal create different aesthetic judgements. For example a situation that combines high levels of pleasure and arousal will be “exciting”; a situa-tion that combines high levels of arousal and dis-pleasure will produce “distress”; a situation that is very pleasant but not very exciting will produce “tranquillity” and, finally, a situation with low lev-els of both arousal and pleasure will be “boring” (Galindo & Corraliza Rodríguez, 2000). In a situa-tion of stress, pleasure becomes important as it can eliminate the negative effects of nervous-ness. Tranquillity can be a desired state of mind regarding all the annoying circumstances related to the crisis. So, the pleasing effect of the interior environment can play an important role in coping with stress. Regarding the evaluation of aesthet-ic requirements in living environments, Minuc-ciani and Saglar Onay (2020) have investigated the pleasing effects of certain spatial aspects regard-ing the overall design of interiors including the de-cisions about the spatial envelope (walls, ceiling), furniture (traditional, contemporary), colours and the presence of natural elements and aspects (wa-ter element, interior garden, green walls) which might contribute to the aesthetic character of in-terior space. The results were significantly marked by the positive effect of natural aspects like inte-rior garden, plants and water element. The pres-

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ence of contemporary furniture (chosen by users according to their tastes) was also regarded as an aspect that can contribute to feeling better in a liv-ing environment.

The question how the Coronavirus could change aesthetic judgements and requirements about space might require specific research but it is im-portant to underline the dialectic relation between space and its users. According to Galindo and Cor-raliza Rodríguez (2000), the aesthetic response a given environment may evoke would appear to be an important index of measurement of this con-struct that reflects the level of fit between physical contexts and some of the principal affective needs of individuals in relation to them. So, aesthetic requirements are in close relation to people’s per-sonal expectations and subjectively and culturally bounded tastes. Thus, meeting aesthetic require-ments necessitate active involvement of people’s own decisions about the environment which might also be affected by fashion and changing trends.

Conclusions

In this study, the effect of the Coronavirus on in-terior space has been discussed through the well-

being framework consisting of contextual, func-tional, psychological, social, sensory, aesthetic and ergonomic requirements related to living en-vironments. The use of the framework to evaluate the changes in the concept of well-being related to the Coronavirus can help to identify the main problems caused by the outbreak and the possible solutions that can be developed in the near future.

Although it is difficult to foresee the changes the Coronavirus will bring in the near future, envi-ronmental designers need to get prepared and evaluate the situation especially through inter-disciplinary scientific research and observations. Regarding the mission of interior space as the fol-lower of life, it would be impossible to neglect the role of interior design on our well-being. Interiors are the most dynamic components of the built environment with their continuous tendency to change. The temporary character of interior de-sign becomes an advantage while we think about its capability to support human activity as human needs and expectations can change very rapidly. Regarding rapid change, the spread of the Coro-navirus is one of the most significant examples humankind has confronted. In a situation like this, interior design has the potential to give faster responses and adapt living environments to new

fig. 7 - Evaluation of the pleasing effect of certain interior elements in living environments (Minucciani, Saglar Onay, 2020).

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requirements.

The Coronavirus has underlined the importance of scientific research especially at the intersection of interior design, medical sciences and social sciences. As discussed above, the spatial attributes related to the well-being requirements in the framework, all have considerable effect on people’s health and well-being. Interiors mark out a domain that is controllable in the first step by the designer and in the second step by the user. This control mechanism needs to be structured in such a way that interior design cre-ates the appropriate stage for living in special situations like the one of the Coronavirus and gives the necessary tools to the user to build his well-being.

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