COVID-19 ARCHITECTURE “DESIGN FOR THE NEW ERA”
"Design has never been this important. Here’s how we can develop the change to help people and society adapt this crisis and prepare for the future" How previous pandemic redesigned world? From antibacterial brass doorknobs to broad, well-ventilated boulevards, our cities and buildings have always been shaped by disease. It was cholera that influenced the modern street grid, as 19th-century epidemics prompted the introduction of sewage systems that required the roads above them to be wider and straighter, along with new zoning laws to prevent overcrowding. The third plague pandemic, a bubonic outbreak that began in China in 1855, changed the design of everything from drain pipes to door thresholds and building foundations, in the global war against the rat. And the wipe-clean aesthetic of modernism was partly a result of tuberculosis, with light-flooded sanatoriums inspiring an era of white-painted rooms, hygienic tiled bathrooms and the ubiquitous mid-century recliner ch