This Changes Everything

This changes everything.

An investigation into the evolving responsibilities of the Built Environment sector in a post-pandemic world.

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What’s inside: Introduction Lee Polisano

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02.

03.

Overarching Themes

City Design

Sectors

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69 Density

Pierfrancesco Maran

City of Milan

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Big Data and Technology Sandy Tung Greater London Authority

19 Sustainability

Daniel Chang Hines

77 Mobility

Federico Parolotto

Mobility in Chain

27 Resilience

Ilan Kelman

University College London

85 Open Space

Jeff Risom Gehl

35 Healthy Places

Araceli Camargo

The Centric Lab 43 Social Value

Sophia Cox

UK Green Building Council 51 Governance

Patrick Les Galès

Sciences Po, Centre for

European Studies and

Comparative Politics 59 Construction

Mark Reynolds Mace

Retail and F&B Scott Malkin and William Riordan Value Retail

103 Workplace

Ronen Journo WeWork 111 Educational Places

Andrew Harrison

Spaces That Work 119 Homes

Adina David and

Gary McLuskey Greystar 127 Cultural Places

Gordon Seabright

Creative Land Trust

Now, we evolve.

The global health crisis has thrown everything we’ve been doing into question, across all aspects and walks of life. Such a disruptive force demands and allows us to rethink our processes and take radical steps to do things better.

Throughout this time, as a global society, we have taken unprecedented actions to limit the spread of the virus whilst trying to secure the livelihoods of billions of people around the word. Whether this is national governments working across borders or neighbours helping those next-door.

The resilience of people and our systems has been tested. People have lost loved ones, their jobs and their freedoms. Both the virus and the ensuing lockdowns have dramatically shifted people’s habits, behaviours and expectations.

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Introduction

Things Have Changed We are now moving into a world that is ultimately more connected. Due to a shared trauma, people around the world have been experiencing life from a far more similar perspective than ever before.

Our Responsibility Now, as we start the transition to a new normal, how can we rebuild our lives (singularly and collectively) to take something good from this crisis? As designers of the built environment, we will be at the forefront of this change.

It is a world that has proven ready to accept radical changes to our normal patterns . We have been able to make huge changes, quickly and for the good of people internationally. What repercussions might this new mindset have when tackling other global issues moving forward?

We have come to see that the changes in people’s habits, behaviours and expectations are largely an acceleration of already existing thoughts and movements. In the built environment particularly, we have seen trends pick up traction linked to health and wellbeing, technology and of how we use our space more generally. Most importantly, the discussion of the impacts of cities on our health has been taken out of the hands of experts and into those of the general public. Now, more than ever, health is being the driving factor in shaping the form of the city as well as the way that we interact with it and each other.

It has been a learning experience in which we have come to discover what is important to us. Whether it is things we have missed - being able to see loved ones and friends, visit places that make us happy or experiencing nature. Or, things that we’ve found more time to do: reading a good book, pick up a new hobby, taking care of our minds and bodies.

In order to help our industry identify key changes and plot the future, we have created this document to offer insight on how me might respond to a radically changed world. What we can do to aid the transition to the ‘new normal’? Which pandemic responses we should keep in place? And ultimately, how we can create a better future for people?

There is greater public awareness of how cities can be both bad and good for our health. We have seen our cities emptier, either peaceful or eerie. We have seen how, in places, wildlife returned once humans powered down. Clouds of pollution dissipated.

As a society we are stronger. We have helped our neighbours, been reminded of the importance of key workers and services in our communities, homeschooled our children and put our lives on hold to protect the vulnerable.

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COVID-19 Pandemic Declared

Designers, planners, users, inhabitants, citizens, developers and investors of cities must remain agile and react quickly to the fast-changing pace of the global health crisis.

Businesses are changing their views on real estate and buildings, reconsidering what role their spaces will play in a changing world. Companies are looking to change how they operate. How can they provide safer and healthier environments for their employees, whilst maintaining a viable business?

Disruption event

Societal and technological growth

We will likely see a large increase in innovation over the coming months and years as organisations and governments take drastic steps to stay afloat and relevant. This will mean a far greater acceptance of radical ideas. This is a time for positive change, arising from such a destructive force.

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Immediate response

Inflation point

Introduction

During Impact

Re-entry Preparation

Inovate and Flourish

Flourish Next normal

Innovation Path towards new normal

New-old normal

Traditional path

Time

We are here 5

Are you more conscious of your health and wellbeing as a result of working from home?

Why do you feel as though you are more consious of your health and wellbeing now?

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% More conscious

About the same

Less conscious

I used to be active during my commute, I am aware of the missing activity

To combat isolation

Prefer not to say

I feel like I don’t need to

I never cared much about my health and wellbeing

I have more control over my day I am too busy with other things

Other

PLP keeps moving PLP Labs and PLP Architecture continued to operate through the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting like many others new ways of working internally and with our partners. We have used this global disruption as an opportunity to not only continue the high calibre work that we always strive to produce, but to learn from the changing world, produce better work and enhance the ways that we create the built environment.

This publication is one small part of our effort to understand the current situation and how to move forward as we transition to a new normal and a healthier, more sustainable and smarter future. To understand another piece of the puzzle, we also conducted an internal survey to establish how working from home had changed people’s outlooks and approaches to work.

We see the coming months and years as a truly important step in the development of our cities and the societies that inhabit them. The pandemic and subsequent lockdown has shone a light on many aspects of our cities that need improvement. It has also shown that many of the problems we’ve been facing, and the necessary solutions, are things that PLP and other industry leaders have been thinking about for years and have been attempting to introduce into common practice.

We established that the traditional office set up of the individual - the desk, computer screen etc. - is still the best for the task. Whilst having the option to choose more relaxed seating and working arrangements, the majority chose where possible to recreate an environment similar to the office.

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Introduction

What best describes your current work space?

I choose not to work in an office-like environment

I have specially recreated an office-like environment

I work in a home that does not have an office-like environment

I am using an existing office-like environment

What are some of the new ways of working that you have adopted or increased since working from home?

Sketching by hand Sketching by on a computer, tablet or phone Reading Note taking/writing Talking through ideas with people Working more independently Other 01

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forward.

These, and many more findings throughout our various branches of research that PLP are conducting, are ultimately aimed at creating movement within our industry, so that rather return to a pre-pandemic state, we can use this as a moment to create a better world for all to live in.

We also asked if people had taken up new ways of working and whether or not these had been useful. Over 60% of respondents said that had been working more independently, and amongst other things over 40% had adopted digital sketching as a way of communicating ideas. Over 93% said that these changes had a positive impact on their daily work.

When digging into the health and wellbeing effects of working from home, over 70% said that the move had made them more conscious of their health and wellbeing. Key factors include them feeling as though they have more control over their day now, or that they feel as though they need to compensate for not having an active commute anymore.

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01.

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Overarching Themes Big Data and Technology Sustainability Resilience Healthy Places Social Value Governance Construction

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Overarching Themes

Big Data and Technology Change Lessons Interview

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Big Data and Technology

In-touch.

No touching.

Technology was fundamental to keeping society connected whilst in isolation. As we move forward, how will we further integrate the tools and techniques that we’ve learnt into our daily lives, buildings and cities to create a new healthier ‘normal’, where we’re even more connected.

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

Contactless will become king.

Growing concerns about touching shared surfaces will drive demand for a contact-free experience throughout buildings, from lobby to desk and everything in between.

More people will consciously monitor their health and wellbeing vitals through wearable technologies and apps.

03.

04.

We will increasingly ask, or be asked, for buildings and public spaces to contribute to personal and environmental monitoring and tracking.

Greater digital connectivity will mean less physical contact in all walks of life, whether it’s working from home, attending virtual events or more shopping online.

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06.

There will be a rise in virtual experiences, including more virtual events and digital immersive spaces.

We will see an explosion of new technology coming to cater for the new normal. Strengths, weaknesses and gaps in our current technology have been highlighted.

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Big Data and Technology

What can we do?

In the short term...

Wear your tech.

Many people use wearable technologies such as smart watches, fitness bands or simply apps, to monitor their health for their own benefit. Businesses could provide employees with these items to ensure that they are able to keep track of their health and wellbeing and thus work better. Programmes could be set up where employees offer voluntary data so that the company can manage employee health and wellbeing on a wider scale and implement environmental or programmatic changes in response to this.

Install environmental sensors.

Environmental sensors to monitor air quality, lighting levels and room temperature can be installed around offices and at individual desks to ensure maximum performance from the building’s HVAC systems and other services - which in turn impact employee health, wellbeing and performance.

Go virtual.

Office workers around the world have been forced to get used to meeting virtually in lockdown. Now we have this collective capability, we need to meet virtually where practical to protect our personal health as well as to reduce our carbon footprints.

Embrace the webinar.

Increase the amount of virtual events you host and attend. It’s easier to join a virtual event and it can open the doors for more people to join the discussion. Virtual events also require far fewer resources to set up meaning that more can take place and more of the important discussions can happen.

Do not touch.

Install touch-free tools and technology where possible throughout buildings. Doors and appliances can be as high tech as voice/facial recognition, and as low-tech as hands-free door handles. Enable RFID and contact-free transactions.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Integrate health monitoring into buildings.

Design buildings with health and temperature monitoring capabilities built in to enable them to better cope with people management during the next crisis.

Design for a touch-free experience.

Create buildings which encourage contact-free travel throughout them. Facial recognition, voice activation, sensors and app-controlled devices should be located throughout a building, particularly in lobbies, entrance gates, lifts and toilets.

Be prepared for the next crisis.

For the COVID-19 pandemic, many organisations were caught out without the technological capabilities to implement working-from-home quickly and effectively.

Whilst they caught up, more flexible organisations were able to continue their work. There will be a next crisis, anticipate this and be prepared. Ensure that your IT and management systems are scalable at a moments notice, ensure stable digital communication networks that can cope with mass remote working, and ensure that the people you work with, whether employees or students, have access to suitable hardware such as laptops.

Improve the virtual experience.

As virtual experiences become more valuable to people, spaces and places need to be designed to facilitate these better. Whether it’s creating spaces that can host VR or AR experiences, allowing digital visits to landmarks, or simply enabling better and more immersive video conferencing. The physical environment will need to be a better host to the digital environment.

Manage data to manage people.

Integrate smart technologies into buildings and spaces that can collect data on things such as building usage and pedestrian flows. This information can help inform how to use certain spaces or facilities, organise a workforce, monitor health and wellbeing, track environmental impact and coordinate emergency responses. When looking at your data, engage with people such as behavioural scientists, social policy makers and citizens, who can help you understand it. Data itself is dumb and the outcome has social ramifications. Engage people who understand this.

Engage with new tech and policy.

The pandemic forced everyone to become more technology literate. At the same time, flaws and gaps in our current technology were highlighted. New start-ups and technology will spring up to address these. As this starts to happen, communicate with those that make the decisions and the technology to ensure that newly developed tools are relevant and effective. Share your expertise and invest in promising examples. Governments are drawing up new charters and guidelines, get involved in these to ensure the best results.

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Big Data and Technology

In conversation with

Sandy Tung.

Sandy Tung is based at the Greater London Authority (GLA) and is the Programme Manager for Sharing Cities, a pan-European programme that tests out innovative smart city solutions across major European Cities, replicating and scaling what works through new business and investment models. Sandy is passionate about making cities better places for people to live, work and play.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to technology?

The pandemic has shown how critically important it is to have good quality, reliable data, in real time (or near real-time) to minimise disruption and address citizens’ needs. In London we have seen how challenging that can be.

Due to the fragmented nature of data collection in the public sector, important data sits in different places and it’s only when you pull different datasets together that you can see the big picture from which you can take action, for example, with the work from the London Datastore identifying links between deaths and BAME and low income Londoners with insecure jobs.

Furthermore, we can only draw meaningful insights from the data we get from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors that tell us about our surrounding environment, such as air quality, how people are traveling and what modes of transport they use, if the data is joined up across the city. We identified this challenge before the pandemic, and are currently working with the London Office for Technology and Innovation (LOTI) and several boroughs across London to test a common IoT Framework that officers can use to commission technology in a collaborative way.

and cycling more, and using public transport less often or to make fewer long(er) distance trips as working from home becomes more mainstream and accepted.

The GLA is working with the Alan Turing Institute, TfL, Microsoft and leading UK universities on Project Odysseus, which repurposed models and machine learning algorithms to study the impacts of local air quality in London and how the “busyness” of the city is changing during the pandemic. It’s shown us the power of joined up data and technology to inform how cities can manage the crisis in a smarter way and begin to restart London’s economy safely and sustainably.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

The pandemic has served as a rapid test bed for several ideas that have taken a while to catch on. It has shown just how able local authorities and businesses

“Transparency is key to building trust.”

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

The pandemic has drastically changed the way people move around the city. In the short term this meant people not traveling at all, but in the longer team that will require people to travel in fundamentally different ways than they were used to, especially in cities - walking 16

Interview

“Data is a city’s greatest asset when it comes to planning for the future and for building more resilient cities.”

have been to accelerate their schemes or cleverly adapt - for example with flexible working and active transport (walking and cycling), given these challenging circumstances.

The GLA is the lead coordinator of a European programme called Sharing Cities, which is testing innovative tech-based solutions including electric bike sharing schemes, digital citizen engagement, deep energy retrofits for buildings, and sustainable energy management systems. It brings together 34 partners across the public, private, and academic sectors, and the local municipalities of Lisbon, Milan, and the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, to demonstrate how innovative and thoughtfully designed, integrated, open source solutions can be developed to improve the wellbeing of citizens and reduce our collective impact on climate change. With many voices advocating for a green recovery, this is a great opportunity to seriously look at how these types of solutions can be applied at scale across Europe and beyond.

How do you manage the tensions between sharing data and privacy? Does that change during a crisis?

Data sharing and a citizen’s right to privacy are both important, and this shouldn’t change during a crisis. The pandemic has thrown a spotlight on how vital it is to get this right.

Local governments and any organisation that collects and processes data needs to explain what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why - plainly and simply, in ways that are relevant and accessible to citizens.

Transparency is key to building trust.

How can we use technology to build resilience in cities so that we are able to deal with future crises better?

Data is a city’s greatest asset when it comes to planning for the future and for building more resilient cities. Good data enables you to make better decisions that can prevent future disruptions, or mitigate the impacts of future crises.

Through Sharing Cities, IoT sensors are now feeding in near real-time data into the London Datastore and are linking to other smart technologies and data feeds.

Other emerging technologies we tested, such as Digital Twins, can help us understand how city infrastructure performs under different scenarios. By providing a simulated environment in which we can test how potential interventions respond to a range of possible crises, cities can make preparations for these events without having to experience them first.

In a recent Reuters webinar, London’s Chief Digital Officer Theo Blackwell described how citizens were more willing to share their data “provided that you spoke clearly to people about it, told them what it was for and instituted some governance around how it is used”.

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Overarching Themes

Sustainability Change Lessons Interview

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Sustainability

Good for our health, good for the planet.

Many of the measures taken to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have been shown to also have positive impacts on the environment. As cities begin their regrowth, what place will sustainability have on the agenda? What initiatives will stay?

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

We will see people taking bolder and more radical steps to implement sustainable change. The disruption to our system has provided an opportunity to do so.

The re-growth of economies and sectors around the world will be increasingly founded on sustainable principles and investments.

03.

04.

Awareness will continue to grow that what is good for the planet is also good for humans. The pause of the pandemic has allowed many to realise how important nature is, or can be, to them.

Increased remote working offers the chance for reduced traffic and an accelerated shift to more environmentally friendly modes of transport such as cycling and walking.

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Sustainability

What can we do?

In the short term...

Keep some people at home.

As restrictions are lifted and places start to fill back up with people, consider from an environmental standpoint the benefits of reducing the amount of people that have to come to work on a daily basis. As well as a mitigation of health risks, consider it from an environmental perspective.

Be radical, now.

Push your more radical or more progressive initiatives now. The world needs to change how it operates and this current disruption has provided a platform where we are all more ready to make that change. If you have ideas on how to support the environment and people’s health, implement them now.

Travel better.

Encourage healthier and more sustainable modes of transport, including walking, cycling and micro-mobility sharing schemes. One way is to provide more facilities in workplaces, homes and public spaces. Changes to streets and infrastructure can also make people feel more comfortable taking these modes of transport, including by reducing car accessibility. Another would be to offer cycle to work schemes or similar initiatives.

Governments and companies around the world have begun to implement schemes like this, see if your city has any or if not use your influence to encourage them.

Think what to keep.

Huge amounts of measures and restrictions have been put in place around the world to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Many of these have reduced environmentally damaging practices, including air pollution and impacts of over-tourism. During this time, consider which of these restrictions could be kept in one form or another so that our ‘new normal’ is less damaging to the environment.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Cut down on cars.

Many cities prioritise cars over pedestrians. Fast traffic dominates slim pavements and unprotected cycle lanes.

Not only does this give more space to vehicles that pollute the air, soundscape and night sky, but the risk of a fatal collision is all too real. This reduction of vehicles also opens up more room for green or social spaces.

Facilitate better transport.

For people to use healthier and more sustainable modes of transport, the infrastructure needs to be in place.

Ensure that buildings, public spaces and developments are designed with facilities for bikes and micro-mobility.

This means more bike-sharing stations, safe cycle storage, cycle lanes and electric vehicle charging.

Build better.

Construction is one of the largest contributors to environmental damage. We know how to build better, with better techniques and materials, but we need to actually construct this way. Push for more sustainable and healthier construction materials such as engineered timber, re-use existing building stock where possible, bring in environmental specialists early and listen to them.

Champion sustainable initiatives.

Before the pandemic, we were starting to see a shift to more sustainable investment as companies were striving for their Environmental, Sustainability and Governance (ESG) goals and to achieve certifications like LEED or BREEAM. Now, as economies begin their regrowth, there is a greater opportunity to base this growth in sustainable investment. In all aspects of work and life, champion ideas, projects and methods that are better for the environment - whether to investors, clients and partners.

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Sustainability

In conversation with

Daniel Chang.

Daniel Chang is a Managing Director within the Investment Management team at Hines Europe, based in London. He is has spearheaded numerous successful initiatives for the company, with one of the funds he has managed being awarded GRESB's highest sustainability ratings in Europe.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to sustainability?

The biggest challenges the pandemic has highlighted is to place health and well-being much more centrally into the discussion around sustainability.

This focus will have implications on how we balance our approach to designing and operating buildings and infrastructure going forward - for example: balancing the goal of spatial efficiency while respecting increased requirements for social distancing, balancing energy consumption reduction targets while seeking to elevate health and well-being targets, and balancing work from home policies while revisiting how we use mass public transit while we seek to respect social distancing and cleanliness factors.

Ultimately a focus on health and wellbeing will enable our buildings to become more resilient and sustainable in the future.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

As we work our way through the pandemic, regular health screening will be more commonplace in many public buildings. This will continue in the short-term as people become more comfortable going out in public again, but whether these continue in the long-term really depends on whether there is a resurgence of the pandemic or another one occurs in the upcoming years.

One technology that perfectly aligns itself with the safety measures required by the pandemic is touchfree technology. This was already a big trend before the pandemic, but the need has now only been heightened

and will accelerate its applicability and adoption rate. In buildings, this can include touchless visitor registration, doors activation and elevator destination dispatch and hands-free light and temperature controls which are also more energy efficient.

Another trend that had been growing for some time but will now take on another level of importance is the flexibility to work from home. COVID-19 has forced office workers into a work-from-home environment which has proven for some to be equally as productive for certain workstreams. In the future, a blended environment of work-from-home and in-office work will be the way forward - giving people the choice of where they are able to produce their best work. Having said that there will always be the need for office spaces as places to gather, share ideas, innovate and effectively develop an organisation’s culture. In the long term we do not see offices going away, but rather the way people use them shifting.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

As a result of the pandemic, several opportunities to innovate are becoming apparent. The crisis will provide an opportunity for the design community to rethink how to create spaces that are more flexible and adaptable, safer, healthier, and ultimately more resilient. This not only means providing protection during a pandemic but can also include fostering physical and mental well-being during the period of social isolation that has resulted from the pandemic.

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Interview

“Ultimately a focus on health and wellbeing will enable our buildings to become more resilient and sustainable in the future.”

Hines has had a long tradition of managing buildings and has recognised early on the benefit of integrating the operational perspective into the building design process. Going forward there will be an even closer link between building design and operations. Property and facility management services that focus on health, wellbeing and safety will become an even greater differentiator between providers.

As part of this, technology will be an important way to help make buildings safer, through the touch free technology described earlier, as well as through improved building equipment and installations, such as for example specifying the use of short-wave, germicidal ultraviolet lighting into outdoor air delivery systems to remove both bacterial and viral aerosols from the air before delivering to the occupants.

collaboration among employees that can also serve as additional workspaces. Meanwhile, the home can benefit from a more flexible design that facilitates a work environment when needed.

Additionally, there will be a greater focus on providing outdoor spaces in buildings and cities. Availability of outdoor space has always contributed to improving occupier wellbeing, but during the pandemic it has also proven to improve health and safety. It will be important for masterplans and cities to provide necessary ‘breathing’ spaces for its inhabitants that also help provide a strong sense of community.

What would you say are the key ingredients to building more resilient and sustainable cities so that we’re able to deal with future crises better?

More than ever cities will strive to design communities that emphasise mixed-use and the ability to adapt to evolving changes of use. This model will integrate even more closely the workplace and living and recreational spaces - while creating ‘places’ that provide a strong sense of community.

Flexibility and adaptability are also words that comes to mind, to facilitate even more the ability to work between the office and home - not only through better technology, but also through careful design considerations of the office space and home to make these more flexible in nature. For example, offices could benefit from amenity spaces dedicated to promoting

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Overarching Themes

Resilience Change Lessons Interview

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Resilience

Build resilience, not just responses.

The pandemic and lockdown have uncovered a huge lack of resilience in cities all around the world. The flaws have been highlighted and this gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we need to do to build stronger cities that can withstand whatever challenges the future throws at them.

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

We are seeing a growing acceptance of data collection if it’s used for public health or emergency response.

We see people turning to their local communities for the most meaningful day-to-day help, which public services are struggling to provide.

03.

04.

More people are becoming aware of the impact that cities have on our health and that those in deprived areas are the worst hit in a crisis.

Many of our urban environments, including our homes, schools and streets will need more built-in flexibility, they have been too static to deal with sudden changes in situation.

05.

The importance of cross-sector collaboration is being made all the more clear, with these groups able to tackle a crisis from its many unique angles. Crises aren’t single sector.

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Resilience

What can we do?

In the short term...

Develop tools for communities.

During crises our public and private systems are put under enormous amounts of strain. Where governments and authorities may struggle to provide the necessary services, communities can be the most effective point of response for people. Creating toolkits, educational tools, or knowledge sharing platforms can help communities build up systems of response and care so that they can better deal with crises now and in the future. It is a case of getting ideas out and bringing people together.

Bring in other perspectives.

As organisations scramble to come up with immediate solutions to the numerous challenges of the pandemic, take expertise and opinions from others. These may be companies that are working ahead of the curve or simply other professions who might have a different approach to you. Collaborate, share knowledge and get involved with others.

Listen and learn.

The pandemic has put most of our urban, social and political systems under extreme stress. There is a huge amount we can learn now about how people are coping in a crisis, what they need and what we might need to do in the future to be more prepared for an eventuality like this. Take this opportunity to listen to people, note the problems and challenges, and then use these to inform your decision making in the future. You could conduct surveys, run town hall meetings or simply go out and talk to people.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Build communities into your plans.

As we rebuild after the pandemic, integrate local communities into your work. Engage with and help empower local community organisations. Now, they will be the most knowledgeable about what local communities need to grow back even stronger. In the future, they will be the best and first line of defence for people to cope with the next crisis. Integrating local communities can help ensure that future development is fair, effective and resilient.

Prioritise the basics.

In whatever work you do, ensure that the basic building blocks for people’s quality of life are met. Create good quality housing for those who need it, provide public space, play parks and natural areas. By ensuring that all levels of our society are able to reach a good quality of life, we will greatly improve our overall resilience. This is preventative care that can dampen the effects of a crisis.

Be smart.

Enable smart city technologies where possible so that data collection can be more effective and comprehensive in the future. Some of the most effective responses to the crisis, such as in Singapore and Hong Kong, have been in part due to the ability to manage and collect vital data.

Our cities need to have these capabilities built into them so that we are ready. This data will also help us create better cities for people outside of a crisis.

Don’t be insular.

When you’re working to develop future resilience strategies, in whatever sector, bring in people from other disciplines as part of cross-sector working groups. Crises aren’t ever single-factor events and each element of our city impacts another. Having these different viewpoints on board early on can help you catch problems that you may not think about in your discipline. Bring in people that you wouldn’t usually work with.

Anticipate a crisis.

Most people and organisations weren’t ready for the COVID-19 global health crisis. There will be more in the future, likely in relation to the worsening climate crisis. Prepare by ensuring that you can scale your works up or down as needed, have flexible plans and places.

Anticipate how different regions and different people will be affected.

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Resilience

In conversation with

Ilan Kelman.

Ilan Kelman is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London, England and a Professor II at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, including the integration of climate change into disaster research and health research.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has fewer vehicle crashes, but we should have been tackling highlighted when it comes to resilience in our cities? these problems anyway.

The biggest challenge revealed by the pandemic is that we were not ready for it, despite knowing exactly what could happen and knowing exactly what we needed to do, long before the microbe manifested. When our choice is between mass virus-related mortality and lockdown with its own adverse impacts, then we have lost already. When we kill health and care workers, bus drivers, and other frontline staff because we cannot be bothered giving them the protective equipment we know they need, then we have failed abysmally.

The long-term impacts are up to us. Will we come together to help people avoid adverse impacts while mutually gaining? Or will we return to the pre-pandemic preference for divisiveness and short-term profits over long-term living and livelihoods?

Fundamentally, the challenge highlighted by the pandemic is that too many leaders are not willing to invest fully in the resilience in cities, in order to reap the quick and substantive rewards through the payback of disasters averted. Then, incalculable costs are incurred by responding half-heartedly when it is already too late.

One innovation opportunity is stopping the rhetoric about an “exit strategy” from the pandemic and from lockdown while avoiding “a return to normal”. The “normal” caused the pandemic, through encroaching into ecosystems and maltreating animals followed by valuing the nebulous concept of the “economy” over people’s health, well-being, and livelihoods. We should not aim to bounce back to the conditions which caused the pandemic in the first place.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

The pandemic’s short-term impacts have been an appalling death toll in parallel with the horrendous impacts of lockdown - even though we knew a pandemic was waiting to happen, with reams of plans and preparation material available. Without disputing the vast numbers of virus-related deaths prevented by lockdown, lack of support for people has led to increases in domestic violence, self-harm and suicide, substance use, and other medical conditions not being diagnosed or not treated.

All these are permitted pandemics within society anyway, which ought to have been resolved long ago. Similarly, lives have been saved through reduced air pollution and

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

Instead, we should innovate to create an “entrance strategy” to a better world in which people are first, which includes preventing and preparing for crises long before they appear. We can innovate to stop people dealing with animals without adequate hygiene, to improve surveillance for and response to new pathogens, and to adjust to microbial threats without sacrificing some people, such as doctors and nurses dying of the pandemic’s disease while not diagnosing or treating cancer patients.

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Interview

What can we do to help build resilience in our cities, so that we are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

To improve for a better future, we must act on the proven ethos that prevention is better than cure. This means supporting leaders and media who care about people.

The pandemic and lockdown exposed (but did not create) so many baseline, chronic ills pervading society and governance. They are malignant, yet are typically ignored - or, often, even actively supported. We must admit the fundamental problems, that people are not first in our society and that creating crisis conditions is preferred over preventing them, in order to be able to solve them.

33

“To improve for a better future, we must act on the proven ethos that prevention is better than cure.�

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Overarching Themes

Healthy Places Change Lessons Interview

35

Healthy Places

We all want good health.

Whilst many in the built environment and health industries have been stressing the importance of the impact on our environment on our health for many years, it is one of the key issues that has really come to light for the general public during the pandemic. From this point on, we will see more widespread adoption of healthy building and places concepts, with demand coming from legislators, landlords, tenants and citizens alike.

36

Change

What will change?

01.

02.

Buildings and spaces will need to be capable of rapidly adapting to crises.

Contingency plans, multiple uses and flexibility will need to be built into them.

There will be a greater awareness and demand for places that have healthy elements built into them - whether this is green space, fewer cars or better ventilation.

03.

04.

More and more clients will expect buildings to comply with certifications such as WELL and Fitwell.

Health will be top of every agenda.

Businesses will see it as a selling point to attract and retail talent.

Decision makers, communities and designers will use it to build resilience in communities.

05.

New buildings and places will be expected to encourage healthier habits and lifestyles in those who use them. Behaviour change is key to improve health and our built environment can support this.

37

Healthy Places

What can we do?

In the short term...

Keep your distance.

Although physical distancing requirements are different around the world and may change over time, it’s important that buildings can cater for having less people in buildings. This may include spacing elements further away from each other, devising attendance schedules, running shifts or extending business hours. Repurposing underused space in your building, or increasing the usage of outdoor spaces could help you do this. Where possible, creating physical partitions between people can help protect them.

Check your building performance.

It’s not new knowledge that building performance impacts the performance and health of occupants, but it is more important than ever. Do a check-up of how your building is running, including the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Benchmark this with official guidelines or other buildings. Identify where improvements can be made in both the short and long term.

Make your building healthier.

Use the WELL building standards or something similar to identify what aspects of your buildings impact people’s health - such as natural lighting, ventilation, greenery etc. Monitor these indicators and identify how you can make your building healthier quickly and easily.

Change people’s habits.

Encourage people to adopt new hygiene habits. This can be done through friendly and dynamic signage, so as to not cause alarm or stress. It can also be achieved through providing hand washing or sanitizing stations.

Installing contactless technologies, such as automated doors and lifts or touch-free taps, can also help people adopt more hygienic practices.

Facilitate better wellbeing.

Consider running programmes or installing amenities that encourage better wellbeing - you may need to re-purpose space or provide facilities to accommodate this. For example, you could implement a cycle to work scheme, or host weekly yoga sessions.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Commit to wellness standards.

Design buildings to standards such as WELL or Fitwell.

Or design your own standards. A healthy building creates healthy and productive people. If you commit to measurable objectives, you will be seen to be a leader in health and wellbeing, which will set you out from the crowd for what will soon be the most desirable building element.

Design for healthier lifestyles.

Use design to encourage occupants to take part in healthy activities. Create exciting stairwells or walking routes, provide cycling routes and facilities, offer extra services in-house to support these activities.

Be up to date.

Design buildings to conform to new ideas or legislation on space allocation, such as larger lobbies, greater lift capacity, more stairs, greater floor area per person and wider corridors. If buildings from now on are designed with these factors in mind, we will be much better prepared for future crises.

Meet the basics better.

Improve neighbourhoods you work in from a point of human dignity. Improve the quality of housing, whether it’s correctly insulated homes or providing adequate space. Improve access to natural, public or open spaces.

Cut air pollution by reducing traffic or providing bicycle facilities. Ensure residents have access to affordable healthy food. These are some of the most fundamental building blocks that are often not met and as a result communities deprived of these aspects suffer far worse, not only in a crisis but daily. Improve this and you will build up the city’s health resilience.

Change how we do and don’t touch things.

The pandemic has accelerated a demand for contactfree technologies and tools to minimise contact with shared surfaces. This may materialise as sensors, app control or facial recognition for lifts, doors, entrances or anything with a button. Many surfaces however cannot be contact-free. A touch-free banister won’t stop you falling down the stairs. For these, consider materials that have antibacterial properties - whether natural like copper, or newer synthetic materials.

Think about mental health.

If you don’t already, have mental health as one of your top priorities in building and space planning, design and management. This will be increasingly demanded by users, clients and investors. This may include encouraging socialisation, creating views outwards, providing access to green and natural areas - or much more.

Develop better community health.

Work with communities, particularly in deprived areas who will be in the most need, to help them build up the strength of their communities so that they can better support each other in and out of a crisis. Build tools, invest in schemes or share knowledge to help them be more resilient. A healthier community means better health for the individuals in them.

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Healthy Places

In conversation with

Araceli Camargo.

Araceli Camargo is of Indigenous American descent and a cognitive neuroscientist.

She is currently the co-founder of Centric Lab, which is a neuroscience lab focusing on understanding how the built environment presents risks for certain health issues such as depression, anxiety, obesity, or PTSD. Araceli holds an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience from King’s College London, where she focused on Autism. Her goal is to make habitats that are healthy, to provide people with a high quality of life and dignity.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to urban health?

The challenge the pandemic has highlighted is that structural racism implemented through the industry ecosystem of the built environment creates real life impact on people’s health. It is undeniable that our health is directly related to the health of our habitats and if we are to survive as a civil society we need to create habitats that support health equity.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

The short term impact is the sense of urgency, this is unfortunate but life will go back to a sense of normalcy in the coming months - not necessarily because life will be normal but we would have normalised the death rate and the threat of the virus. Therefore, it is the job of us as citizens and professionals to form communities and support communities who are being highly affected, as the impact for them will be long-lasting. For many of them there will be no turning back. Community is what is likely to last - especially as in the coming year there will be more challenges presented by a low economy and the long-term health effects of COVID-19 (some people may not be able to work).

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

Using words like opportunity are crass and insensitive especially as people are suffering - what might be more accurate/kinder to say is - how do we use this pandemic to be a better society. This is not necessarily going to come through a grand gesture of high-tech capitalist centred innovation. It very much can be as simple as making homes that have good insulation, so they are not mouldy, drafty or noisy. It can be a change in culture in the way that Black Lives Matter is already doing - a culture that moves away from individualism, capitalism and consumerism and asks for dignity, equitability and planetary health. It can be in a small community creating a land trust or a communal vegetable garden to feed their neighbourhoods.

“... it is the job of us as citizens and professionals to form communities and support communities who are being highly affected...”

40

Interview

“It is undeniable that our health is directly related to the health of our habitats and if we are to survive as a civil society we need to create habitats that support health equity.�

What can we do to help build people’s health resilience, so that they are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

From the top down it is providing tools, insights, and affordances to build community and sustain biological stability. By that I mean improving neighbourhoods from a point of view of human dignity. Help platform communities that are already doing the work, help them raise funds so they can continue doing the work and collaborate with them in creating new tools that might not be within their resource budget. Listen to the people on the ground as their know-how will be far superior than those who have no experiences in community building or in the effects of the pandemic.

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42

Overarching Themes

Social Value Change Lessons Interview

43

Social Value

Cities are for people.

We are experiencing a growing shift and awareness in the industry of the impact that the built environment has on people and communities. There is increasing pressure to develop new ways to measure and deliver social value. The concept of creating social value is not new and is assuming a more crucial role as the global pandemic has helped highlight the effects the built environment has on people's health and wellbeing, economic stability and relationship to the community.

Moving forward, the most successful neighbourhoods will be those that are conceived with social impact in mind, integrating the communities' needs and responding directly to them in a measurable way. Developers and councils have the opportunity to create resilient places, whilst achieving their investor-set ESGs.

44

Change

What will change?

01.

02.

There will be an acceleration of the move towards more environmentally and socially conscious investing.

There will be a greater demand from those who are shaping the built environment to deliver social value.

Measuring and reporting on the impact that developments have on communities will be key indicators of their quality.

03.

04.

There will be greater priority put on developing accessibility and dignity in deprived areas of the city.

There will be a greater awareness of the link between economic deprivation and vulnerability to health issues.

05.

There will be a greater priority put on the importance of quality of homes, particularly affordable homes, which were seen to be sometimes inadequate during the lockdown.

45

Social Value

What can we do?

In the short term...

Work with the community.

Integrate local community groups into your process where possible. Throughout the pandemic, across the world, local groups have been at the frontline of dealing with some of the community’s most difficult issues. They know the area and its problems and can offer you some of the most important information.

Respond to issues evenly.

Ensure that decisions to improve public health, safety and wellbeing are made evenly across the city so that all citizens benefit. Do not just implement changes in the most visible or popular areas.

Be aware of inequalities.

In times of crisis, the inequalities in our cities become all the more prominent. With a pandemic like COVID-19 in particular, those that live in the more deprived areas of cities have suffered the most. When implementing new changes in cities or responses to the crisis, pay more attention to the needs of those with less. A city is only as strong as its weakest citizen.

46

Lessons

In the long term...

Rebuild better for everyone.

Set your principles for re-building on environmentally and socially conscious ideals. We have the opportunity to build a fairer and greener world, we should act on it.

There will be increased demand for this from consumers, clients and investors - who either want to see positive change in their cities, to hit their ESG targets, or to be able to report back to shareholders positively.

Build communities.

Consider how your developments, projects or designs enhance social integration and community bonding.

In times of crisis it is those that rely on insufficient public services that suffer the most, these are the people that have to fall back on community services and their neighbours. In preparation for the future, we need to encourage the creation of community bonds where possible.

Improve mobility.

Better systems for physical mobility, i.e. access to regular, cheap and healthy transport, will result in improved social mobility in deprived areas. Not only do we rely on many key, but lower-income, jobs during a crisis, but in normal times the ability to get from A-to-B is vital to improving someone’s life prospects.

Build better housing.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have all spent a lot more time at home. The faults in our homes have become ever more clear and the effects of this are often felt the hardest for those in lower-income, affordable and rented housing. Ensuring that homes are built to healthy building standards, such as WELL, can drastically increase the longevity of the home itself and also the quality of life for residents.

Create better outdoor space.

When developing in lower-income areas, ensure that due consideration is given to creating usable and enjoyable public spaces in order to combat the negative effects of existing poor housing. Homes in these areas are likely to have little or no outdoor space.

47

Social Value

In conversation with

Sophia Cox. Sophia Cox works at UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), an industry-led body with a mission to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment. She is currently leading their work on social value, and has recently published guides to community engagement, social value measurement and local authority social value policy. UKGBC’s Social Value Programme is currently creating a definition of social value for the built environment sector.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to social value in our cities?

The most striking challenge that the pandemic has highlighted for our cities is in addressing the inequalities in how our homes and local areas support our quality of life. This covers a huge range of issues; from access to private outside space and high-quality local amenities as well as the less visible issues of local air quality and noise pollution. The second challenge is more subtle - it’s part of an understanding of (and cultural shift towards) a wider understand of value. The value of nurses and shopkeepers to society has been proven to be undeniably higher than their current wages. Decisions about which activities are allowed to continue while we are still living in a pandemic are being made with a full appreciation of the benefits they bring to the economy and to our quality of life. Public announcements, newspaper articles and everyday exchanges are acknowledging what would’ve once been a radical idea; that our economy is not operating in a vacuum. The challenge is now how to integrate that appreciation of social value into all business decision-making.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

Sadly, we have already left behind some of the positive environmental impacts that we saw in the beginning of lockdown. There seem to be just as many cars on the roads and due to our need for personal protective wear our single use plastics consumption is growing.

Hopefully efforts to make streets in city centres more pedestrian-friendly will be retained, along with efforts to encourage city centre cycling. One of the biggest unknowns is the upcoming impact of working from home on carbon emissions - some sources project this trend will benefit the environment, others are less hopeful. As usual, those most impacted by no longer having a warm office environment to escape to will suffer most from the health impacts. But almost certainly the longest-term impact will be on the economy, and the greatest hope cities have in mitigating against that will be through supporting social capital and strengthening communities. As such, the phrase “social value” is unlikely to disappear from the political agenda.

“As usual, those most impacted by no longer having a warm office environment to escape to will suffer most from the health impacts.”

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Interview

“Communities are 'experts in their own lives' and are likely to be best placed to come up with solutions to their own challenges.”

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

Quite a lot of the best solutions are rooted in communities. The impacts of the pandemic aren’t playing out evenly, so the specific needs are likely to be hyper-localised. Communities are “experts in their own lives” and are likely to be best placed to come up with solutions to their own challenges. Business and government will need to learn to play a supporting role in those activities.

What can we do to help build social value in our cities, so that they are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

Building resilience is key - both in our communities and in the built environment. For example, the built environment needs more green and blue infrastructure to be able to cope with future climatic scenarios.

Communities can be part of the delivery and maintenance of that infrastructure - and strengthen their own social bonds in the process.

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50

Overarching Themes

Governance Change Lessons Interview

51

Governance

We all just got better at talking.

The first months of lockdown saw a huge change in how national and local authorities as well as large real estate owners communicated and organised to respond to the pandemic. They were pushed to revise their traditional methods of thinking in a radical and immediate way.

They reached outside of their usual circles to bring in more expertise and develop new perspectives. In the built environment sector, this led to conversations being more open and having a more diverse pool of expertise being part of those discussions. At the same time, the pandemic has highlighted that we need more collaboration between health experts and local authorities.

The need to learn from the experiences of other countries to rapidly improve our own responses became obvious. The need for more cross-border crosspollination of knowledge and general cooperation became obvious. This time has been, and continues to be, a learning experience for how we deal with crises. What can we do better in the short term to improve our current situation? And what can we learn from and improve upon to enable us to be better prepared when the next crisis hits?

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

There will be increasing interest in multi-level governance across regions, cities and local government, as well as increased cooperation with non-governmental organisations and actors. This will lead to more effective and diverse strategizing, learning, and sharing.

There will be increased discussion about how we can improve and innovate our capacity building and how legitimate information is communicated to the public.

03.

04.

Health will play a bigger role in urban governance, with better and more public participation in decisionmaking needed to collectively deal with a crisis.

We will see a much greater shift in conversations on all levels regarding health, wellbeing and the environment. Health will be seen as a collective problem that can be addressed at the urban level.

05.

There will be an acceleration in multidisciplinary working, including dedicated cross-sector companies.

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Governance

What can we do?

In the short term...

Get online.

Where possible, move any events, talks or consultations to an online platform instead of cancelling or postponing them. This way you don’t risk stalling important work that could benefit people who need it. Digital events and consultation can open the doors for greater participation from people who might not otherwise be able to attend physical events.

Build local capacity.

Supporting and systematically consulting cities and local governments to deliver their own strategies will relieve pressure on the national government and allow councils to respond more quickly and innovatively and more relevant to their local needs. Get involved where you can to increase local learning and infrastructure.

Think beyond national borders.

Many state responses have and remain focused on what occurs within their borders and have, as a result, missed opportunities to govern and innovate together. There is a necessity, more evident than ever, to try to plan together on a national, regional and global level. Encourage multilateral cooperation and shared solutions where possible and have an honest debate about new reforms that may make coordination more effective.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Adapt to decentralisation.

The pandemic has shown the importance of strong local governments as well as good networks of heath services and local community organisations. As not all localities face the same trade-offs, a centralised approach to decision-making may hinder the ability of local governments to react to the crisis. Countries may move towards a more decentralised approach — for it to work it is imperative that there be a high degree of coordination and integration between different levels of government.

Prioritise data privacy and security.

Data will continue to be an important asset for organisations and it is more crucial than ever that data is safely and successfully collected and shared where appropriate. Take adequate measures to protect employees’ and clients’ privacy and stay compliant with relevant data privacy regulations. To keep up with the ever-evolving cyber risk landscape, have strong information security policies and practices in place that protect your client’s data from malicious or unauthorised use and update these regularly.

Plan for prevention.

More crises will happen again in the future, so contingency plans must focus on better prevention and systems to support the most vulnerable people of our society. Part of this includes building stronger and better organised health systems and creating better urban environments that build up citizens' health resilience.

Develop the capacity to react better.

One of the key issues with responses to the COVID-19 pandemic was that countries didn’t learn from each other's successes and failures. Set up ways to learn from international counterparts so that prevention and responses can be quicker. It’s also important to put systems in place to ensure information communicated is legitimate.

Improve digital infrastructure.

Keeping digital connectivity as a key element is crucial when developing schemes, particularly moving forward and with the introduction of new technology such as 5G. As more people continue to work remotely homes, workplaces, schools and everywhere in between will need more reliable, accessible and faster internet and mobile coverage.

55

Governance

In conversation with

Patrick Les Galès Patrick Le Galès is Research Professor of Sociology and Politics, at Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics and he chairs the “Cities are back in town” and “Restructuring the state” research groups. Patrick is the author of several books, including “Globalised Minds, Roots in the City: Urban Upper-middle Classes in Europe” and “European Cities: Social Conflicts and Governance”.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to governance in our cities?

One of the key challenges is how we perceive cities and how we articulate the changes we see in them. Cities are both ‘leaders’ and ‘targets’. In the past 30 years they have been growing, becoming leaders and largely positive symbols. The pandemic however is bringing out their underlying fragilities, making them targets of either populist movements, pollution or viruses. These are not growing factors, but during the pandemic the leader elements are disappearing, highlighting the city’s vulnerabilities. This process is causing people to think that the pandemic is the end of the city - I absolutely do not agree with that.

Another challenge is poverty and the failure of governments to deal with it. The link between the spread and death rate of COVID-19, connected to poverty is clear. The more poverty you have, the more cases you have, the more death you have. And this is very clear in rich countries. Linked to poverty are bad housing conditions, slums and informal jobs or activities. The poorest suburbs of Paris are the worst hit, and it’s striking in the US. Thirdly, we have the governance failure of health services. Not just hospitals, but all health services.

To increase life expectancy and the general health of populations, we need to look at health as a collective problem that can be addressed at the urban level. We need collective action to build our capacities to deal with and prevent these issues. When we have cities with few hospitals, small networks of doctors and few health centres for different populations - this is a failure of governance.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

What we see so far is a very clear emphasis on rethinking the relationship between health, pollution and the organisation of collective services - which was already here, but that has been accelerated with the crisis. An overlap between these three elements, health being linked to air pollution and transport for instance, has seen cities all over Europe seize the moment to transform how they deal with the climate crisis. We have seen a very strong increase of policy implementation for ideas that were already present pre-pandemic, such as creating bicycle lanes; not only in Europe but also Korea, China, Japan and to some extent in the US. It’s too soon to say if people will decide that cities are too dangerous. I don’t think we shall see as big an exodus from the city to smaller towns as we did in the 70s, there are strong reasons for being close to the city in terms of the labour market, but in the long-term we don’t know.

Generational differences are worth bearing in mind.

Under-30s, the Extinction Rebellion generation, think in a different way. For them, issues of pollution, water and food might be a deciding factor. What we have seen is that cities change in periods - the late 19th century saw a strong urbanisation movement related to the industrial revolution, whilst the 70s saw a decline in industrial cities. Who’s to say that in 20-30 years we won’t have a new urban cycle, where people try to live in a different way?

Lastly, COVID-19 has displayed the limits of national responses to crisis. What is most striking is not that states have done badly in most cases, but more the incapacity of state elites to think beyond their national borders. The Italians didn’t take the Chinese seriously, 56

Interview

“What is most striking is not that states have done badly in most cases, but more the incapacity of state elites to think beyond their national borders.”

the French didn’t take the Italians seriously, the Brits didn’t learn from Spain, Italy or France at all, and the US learned nothing. In a way, this gives more legitimacy to the multiple governance way of thinking - for building capacity to regions, cities and local governments to develop strategies and act with more distance from the state.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

Innovation can be good or bad. For example, we have seen a rise in interest for organisations to gather and control big data. What is important here is for there to be strict control over who has access to what, otherwise we could be in trouble, as well as having this data for public purposes. The EU has been strong with this, which is important as many people lack trust in these devices and methods - highlighted by the UK and France’s numerous failures in contact tracing. So, we have an opportunity to think about how we use these devices and follow through with precise discussion and legislative protection.

There is also the opportunity to innovate in how we communicate legitimate information. I think it’s fair to say that a number of politicians have been abysmal in terms of communicating the issues. We need to think collectively how we should develop a capacity to be able to react to circumstance, as well as how information is communicated. What sort of political authority should be exercised through speeches, and how can you get the message across from both top scientists and politicians?

More importantly though is to innovate in how we organise prevention. To think how our health system has different entry points for different populations, how to collectively organise and deal with a crisis, how to learn from other countries, how to anticipate the issues, resources needed and most vulnerable populations. We need to be able to combine health and urban governance issues, because there will be more pandemics in the future.

What can we do to help create better governance in our cities, so that they are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

In terms of preparing for the next crisis, a lot of what needs to be done is implement the fundamental ideas of having appropriate services and access to them. You need good networks of health, people and organisations. You need to be able to deliver reliable and trusted information.

You need to have ways to organise how equipment is developed on time and to the right populations. To help with these though, some form of decentralisation will help. Particularly in the UK, which is extremely centralised compared to the rest of Europe. What was striking with this crisis, was that most governments do have schemes, plans and disaster responses; and none of them seemed to be followed.

That also includes the information that needs to be collected. The inconsistency and lack of clarity over the way that cases were counted was striking throughout the world. And what has been clear here is also the failure of governments to understand which populations are at risk. In both the UK and France, elderly care homes were not seen as important issues in the beginning, when they were the most vulnerable group. So, thinking strategically about your most vulnerable groups is always important in a crisis, and is a clear point for improvement.

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58

Overarching Themes

Construction Change Lessons Interview

59

Construction

Building a better, safer future.

The construction industry is one that will see some of the most large-scale changes. With global supply chains being disrupted and construction workers experiencing some of the highest death rates from COVID-19, many of the changes we see implemented in the sector will likely be here to stay.

60

Change

What will change?

01.

02.

The construction industry had some of the highest COVID-19 employee death rates. Many of the measures implemented during the peak of the pandemic are likely to stay to safeguard workers in the future.

We will see an acceleration in the shift to off-site construction. The sector faced less disruption during the pandemic, with projects often able to continue with fewer issues than their traditional counterparts.

03.

04.

The use of digital technology on site is accelerating as companies have been forced to adopt tools that limit personnel presence.

Companies will reconsider their supply chains to add more resiliency and flexibility in case of a crisis. There will be a shift to more local suppliers.

05.

Delays in building construction will have significant knock-on effects moving forward.

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Construction

What can we do?

In the short term...

Go local.

Whilst global supply chains are disrupted, seek out alternative suppliers that are more local but could provide similar services or materials. Not only will this create a more reliable supply chain for yourself, but it will boost local companies who may otherwise be struggling.

Adopt new tech.

Consider implementing technologies that aid physical distancing. Many emerging digital and robotic tools are available that can limit on-site presence, such as drone technology for inspections or shared digital platforms.

Hold virtual team and public meetings where possible.

Prioritise health.

Organise cleaner and safer job sites. Ensure sites have implemented policies such as staggered shifts, employee temperature checks and top-to-bottom disinfections of job sites, tools and machinery. Normalise hand washing facilities and mandatory glove and mask policies.

62

Lessons

In the long term...

Keep what works.

Many new health and safety measures will have been put in place during the pandemic. Once we arrive at the ‘new normal’, rather than reverting back to previous ways of working, carefully consider the benefits of each one and keep those that seem helpful or reasonable.

Stay local.

If you do move to more local suppliers when recalibrating your supply chains during the pandemic, consider keeping these suppliers afterwards. This will help you build extra resilience into both your supply chain and your local communities.

Innovate.

Use this time as a learning experience to experiment with integrating new technologies or working methods into your work stream. Assess what works and innovate where these could be better. Engage with new government and private industry initiatives, many are being conceived or released at the moment. If you don’t have one, appoint a Head of Innovation within your company to ensure that you’re staying ahead of the curve.

Consider off-site construction.

Explore how off-site construction could be integrated into your work. In the first months of lockdown, off-site construction proved to be more resilient to the crisis than on-site, processes were able to continue with less disruption. In anticipation of a future crisis, see which elements can be constructed this way. This also opens the door to exploring modular solutions and more sustainable construction methods.

Reuse where possible.

Strongly consider adaptively reusing existing structures, spaces and materials. Not only is this considerably better for the environment, but as occupiers look to minimise or add flexibility to their real estate portfolios, new opportunities for innovative design and construction will open up. Embrace the circular economy by engaging with companies that can reuse materials to give them a second life.

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Construction

In conversation with

Mark Reynolds.

Mark was appointed Mace’s Chief Executive in January 2013, and has overseen the company’s revenue growth from £1bn to more than £2bn in 2018. As a member of the UK’s Construction Leadership Council, Mark is a leading voice in the drive to modernise the industry, create more collaborative working practises and ensure it is resilient in the face of future challenges.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to construction?

apprenticeship opportunities in the areas that need them most.

Clearly, the first and most pressing challenge that the whole industry faced was ensuring that we could keep our people healthy and safe while continuing to operate.

The entire sector had to work together to implement the guidance from Government effectively. In turn we then had to establish how we could return to sustainable levels of output and productivity while maintaining that rigorous approach to social distancing.

There is also the question of the future of our urban centres. The long-term impact of the rise of remote working is undoubtedly going to have a huge impact on our towns and cities - some will benefit and some will lose out as the new normal becomes embedded. The workplace is not dead - it must become a place where people want to come to work collaboratively and spend time together; and we have a critical role to play in that transformation.

More broadly, the pandemic bought into sharp relief the failure of the sector to more enthusiastically embrace new ways of working and modern methods of construction. Productivity levels have always been a long-term challenge in the industry. More offsite construction enables a lower level of workforce required on site - and so the projects where more advanced approaches were more embedded faced a much smaller impact on productivity and output once social distancing measures were in place.

Our sector will have a huge impact on how our urban centres change and shift in the future. It is our responsibility to stimulate innovative and creative solutions that help to revitalise economic growth across the country.

“It is our responsibility to stimulate innovative and creative solutions that help to revitalise economic growth across the country.”

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

In the short term, we’re likely to see a continued focus on managing the ongoing risk that we face from COVID-19, including the risk of more lockdown measures restricting our ability to operate.

Longer term, the wider economic recovery and the role our industry is to play in creating new jobs and driving growth across the country will define how successful we are in the future. For construction, it is critical that the UK is able to invest in a way that creates a sustainable pipeline of future talent - particularly creating new 64

Interview

“...we have seen the emergence of a much stronger and more collaborative approach to working together across the sector...�

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

This crisis should be seen as an opportunity to re-shape how our industry operates in the future. We cannot keep building as normal - we will not be able to create a sustainable model for delivery under social distancing without the widespread adoption of construction to production methodology. The scale of that opportunity is being driven by an admirable sense of ambition on behalf of the Government to increase the speed of delivery of large swathes of capital investment.

quickly embed new approaches and tools that create a more productive industry.

At its heart, resilience comes from being able to react quickly and effectively to challenges. The construction sector has demonstrated it can do that in the face of an unprecedented level of uncertainty - and I think that means we are now in a far stronger to position to deal with whatever we face next.

More broadly, we have seen the emergence of a much stronger and more collaborative approach to working together across the sector through the pandemic. In order to operate safely and securely clients, consultants and contractors all had to come together to share best practice and communicate our needs to Government - and that offers a huge opportunity for a more collaborative mindset to future working across the sector.

What are the key ingredients to building resilience in the construction sector so that we’re able to deal with future crises better?

For me, the key steps towards a more resilient construction sector are: more collaborative relationships, better and more equitable management of risk and creating a more productive industry. Those three things are linked - to more effectively manage risks across the supply chain we must build collaborative relationships and contract structures that allow us to share information - and in turn that allows us more 65

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City Design Density Mobility Open Space

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City Design

Density Change Lessons Interview

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Density

Can we make density work better?

Whilst density is good for cities in terms of efficiency, sustainability and vibrancy, there are drawbacks when it comes to trying to maintain physical distancing. Despite this, some of the cities that have dealt with the pandemic most successfully, have been the densest. What can we learn from them? How can we make density work better?

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

Density is being increasingly used as a scapegoat for contagion. Despite this, ultra-high-density cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore were able to control their outbreaks through good governance.

There is an acute awareness that people need more space. People will call for more access to open or green areas, have more space of their own and feel more in control of their ability to distance.

03.

04.

The social and health value of open and green spaces has increased and will continue to be a top priority moving forward.

There will be more debate over the benefits and negatives of density in cities, those championing environmental and social benefits, and those concerned over the health risks.

05.

We will stop talking about density and start talking about liveability.

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Density

What can we do?

In the short term...

Give more space to people.

Implement car-free schemes around parts of cities with the aim to widen pavements and give more space to people. This allows for people to practice physical distancing where pavements are too narrow, it opens up more safe space for cyclists and walkers, and it also can contribute to a reduction in pollution which can add to building people’s health resilience.

Support density with good management.

Some of the cities around the world that have dealt with the global pandemic most successfully have been some of the densest. Places such as Hong Kong and Singapore were able to deal with COVID-19 in their extremely dense urban environments in part through effective and rapid management responses. Even if just on a building level, plan for crises and how you might manage your response.

Repurpose underused space.

Consider using any underutilised space for the betterment of the community through facilitating safe outdoor gathering. This may simply be through adding furniture for the elderly to sit down on their way from the shops. It could be by removing waste, introducing greenery, installing lighting for security. Even low-tech responses can have extremely positive effects on the community, strengthening social bonds, providing outdoor space outside of the home and making the most of space in a dense urban environment. This may even be underused space within your building.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Integrate more natural and open space.

Ensure that people have access to outdoor spaces, even in dense urban environments. If there is little public space, create dwellings with balconies, gardens or courtyards. Negative perceptions of density regarding health can be counteracted by the introduction of natural and open spaces.

Design for changes in our comfort zones.

The pandemic and a growing awareness of the health risks of being close to each other may spur a change in people’s perceptions of their comfort zones. If we look at the four zones of distance - intimate, personal, social, public - people now have more of a preference for social and public distance. Social is a little more than a metre to just less than 4 metres, and public is from nearly 4 to more than 7 metres. When creating spaces for people, consider this.

Create comfortable density.

Particularly when creating housing, consider how to create high-density layouts whilst also providing healthy and comfortable environments for inhabitants. There are design solutions to these though to counter the negative impacts of dense living, whilst reaping the benefits. Ensure that homes are suitable to deal with long-term inhabitation, such as a lockdown scenario and that individuals are able to self-isolate from other members of their households.

Provide amenities.

In high-density areas, particularly ones that are economically deprived, provide more public amenities and open space so that residents - adults and children alike- have somewhere to go outside of their home.

Children may not have space to play at home, adults may not be able to afford the gym or meet their friends at a bar - or, everyone may be under strict a lockdown again. These kinds of places are vital to our personal and community development.

Reduce density anxiety.

Many of the positive effects of high-density living may not be immediately obvious to residents. The fear of living close to others during a health crisis may cause some anxiety. Design tools such as biophilic design, creating pleasant living environments, or creating view corridors can help to lessen some of the negative perceptions of dense urban environments.

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Density

In conversation with

Pierfrancesco Maran.

Pierfrancesco Maran is the Deputy Mayor of Urban Planning, Green Areas and Agriculture of the City of Milan. Before the pandemic he was working on the development of seven abandoned railway stations in Milan, which was considered one of the most important urban projects in Europe. Today his work includes planning Milan’s urban responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to density?

Traditionally, major cities in Europe and around the world were pushing for density. Now, in light of everything that has happened, this mentality has to change. Of course, this comes with some key challenges.

Firstly, mobility is a major issue. For an example, we are seeing workplaces that were previously thought to be the old way of doing things with outer-city locations and access by car, which are actually the models that are coping the best. Companies in the city centre are the ones that are having difficulties. For those that go to work via car, the commute is much the same. But the main reduction of people has been on public transport, due to students and office workers being the main categories of traveller. Not everyone can or wants to shift to cars either, which means we need to introduce new ways of getting around. For example, in Milan we introduced new pop-up bike lanes - now more than seven times the number of cyclists than before are using them.

The second challenge has to do with the timing of the influx of people in and around cities, particularly connected to work. Density is connected to the fact that everyone needs to get to work at rush hour. If everyone has to travel at 8:30 in the morning, we have a problem. So, we need to think about how people work. It’s not a good solution for the city if everyone just works from home all the time, at least not in the long- or medium-term. It kills the economy of the city, bars, restaurants and businesses. So, we’re trying to push workplaces to offer more freedom. Even in high-schools and universities we’re trying to push for around half the people to be present. If we go back to

pre-pandemic numbers, we have a problem, but we also have one if people stay at home. We need to find a balance somewhere in between.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

In the short-term we simply had to react; we had to do something. In May we published a short-term strategy called the 2020 Milan Strategy, in which we laid out immediate responses like creating bike lanes, creating a new system to reopen schools during summer and in September, increasing pedestrianised areas. In the first six months, citizens saw their city change a huge amount.

Of course, this led to certain conflicts, but in a city not everybody will agree. There is a value in reacting.

One of the fundamental short-term impacts was simply that more of our citizens needed our help. People needed money to buy food, to pay rent. We had to do things that we weren’t used to as a city. Politics should be here and now, you have to imagine the future, but you have to realise now.

Perhaps one of the long-term impacts is that we will learn and improve our reaction times. I think that we can improve also by not getting rid of what we’ve achieved. We didn’t invent new bike lanes; it was part of our long-term plan and would have been implemented eventually. But without the pandemic, we probably would have needed five to ten years to do what we did in three to six months.

People would complain that it took a pandemic to make new pedestrianised areas. Well, yes! Because a pandemic forces you to make decisions. If half are in favour and half are against, it allows you to go with the half in favour because in this situation it’s better to make decisions than to talk and talk.

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Interview

“There is still value in creating dense cities, but for it to work we have to reinterpret what this means in the new world and rediscover older ideas that can once again be relevant to our lives.”

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

There is still value in creating dense cities, but for it to work we have to reinterpret what this means in the new world and rediscover older ideas that can once again be relevant to our lives.

One of these older ideas is the importance of the neighbourhood, a smaller scale area within a larger city. We shouldn’t imagine a future where single uses are concentrated in one area - offices in one district, hospitals and commercial centres in another. You can have your office in a skyscraper in one neighbourhood, but you could have a smart-working option in another neighbourhood closer to home. You should be able to rediscover the local butcher, rather than rely on the supermarket. This is part of the value of a city, that it is not the same everywhere. So, we have to push for the mixed city, that’s so important. It’s not easy, but it’s important.

We also need to think about how we move about and the spaces we occupy. We need to imagine a new service of mobility on demand, perhaps the ‘uber-isation’ of taxis and buses. We need to discuss what kind of buildings we need to create. In Milan in the first seven months of 2020, we had the same building permissions as 2019. It was like COVID didn’t exist, but COVID existed. We need to adapt how we build. Citizens have all realised that if they have a balcony, a garden, or one extra room, they can live far better. But they can’t afford these additions for the same price as they would expect for a home. So, we need to imagine a sort of revolution that changes the cost of housing.

How can we use density to help build resilience in our cities, so that we are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

I think that we can use what we have learned and implemented to build resilience, as long as we do not forget and return to past habits. Whilst there is a chance that we could go back to how we were living before, I doubt it. In Bergamo, near to Milan, one in every onehundred citizens died. This tragedy has scared us, we won’t forget it.

There has been a mentality shift, on all sides. Take the idea of reclaiming streets. Before the pandemic, whenever I proposed taking parking spaces away to implement pedestrianised areas or bike lanes, we were met with complaints. Now, it’s the opposite way round. People are asking to have more space outside, fewer cars, places to walk, eat and drink. We have shortened the permission process for venues to get outside seating from four to six months, down to fifteen days. Many businesses have written to us saying how their businesses have been saved.

It helped citizens realise that they can again go outside, because it’s safe, there is space and it’s clean there. It was helpful for them to rediscover their freedom - and now we think we’ll make it permanent.

This is also a crucial mentality shift that can help with the environment and people’s health. Every city should be making moves on this. Even the small things - of having less rush or being able to walk for a moment to the office if it’s not far - are important.

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City Design

Mobility Change Lessons Interview

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Mobility

Whose streets?

Our streets.

The past few years have seen a dramatic shift in attitudes towards how we move from A to B. Demand for different types of mobility have grown and expectations about what our streets should be like have evolved. The health crisis has added an injection of adrenaline and urgency to this movement, being a catalyst for governments around the world to implement radical schemes such as citywide carfree schemes.

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

A greater priority will be put on pedestrian and cyclist movements over larger vehicles. Existing infrastructure will be altered, temporarily or permanently, to encourage healthier and more distanced forms of movement.

Transport infrastructure will be designed and altered enable greater adaptability, multiple designated uses and built-in resilience to cope with sudden changes of use.

03.

04.

Healthy streets initiatives will be accelerated as more people become aware of the root issues of health, environment and space.

We will see a surge in the range of mobility options available, particularly in the micro-mobility sector. Companies will rapidly innovate to provide new solutions to current and future problems.

05.

The ‘how, why, when and where’ of travel will change permanently.

Transport providers will no longer be able to rely on set peak travel times, as we transform our working habits, or on seasonal holiday periods, which are now disrupted by unpredictable travel restrictions.

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Mobility

What can we do?

In the short term...

Speed up healthy streets initiatives.

For a number of years, cities have been exploring healthy streets initiatives to create environments that are better for people and the city in general. These schemes often include a number of different interventions, some of which include traffic calming measurements, shared spaces, dedicated cycle lanes, or trees and vegetation.

These additions to our streets are now more important than ever, as we become more aware of the need for our cities to be healthy places. We don’t need to start fresh, just to accelerate what we were already doing.

Accommodate changes in mobility.

Public transport, particularly underground lines, trains and buses, have been hit hard by the pandemic and fears of contagion. Where possible, many people are choosing to cycle or use micro-mobility alternatives like electric scooters. Many cities however are not designed around these modes of transport - particularly newer models.

Where possible, create more space for people to safely ride and park their bikes and scooters. People need to be encouraged to use these safer and healthier ways to get around.

Change your priorities, at least temporarily.

Whilst we live alongside COVID-19 we will need to make drastic changes to our streets to give more of a priority to people rather than vehicles. Whether it’s extra space for walking, more outdoor seating for restaurants or added temporary cycle paths - we need more space and taking this space from cars can make streets safer ( fewer and slower vehicles) and greener ( fewer emissions).

Implement these changes temporarily, but bear in mind that if they improve urban life, we may want to make them more permanent.

Communicate changes clearly and calmly.

It will take people time to get used to changes in our cities. Until we do, it’s important to communicate changes with bold signage that makes people feel calm and comfortable.

Make moving touch-free.

As with in buildings, our streets also have surfaces that we all have to touch to move around. In particular, many cities have touch-controlled pedestrian crossing. Change these and any other shared touch-points to automated systems to minimise our risk of contagion.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Make distancing the new normal.

When designing or developing new streets, neighbourhoods and spaces consider how you factor in physical distancing, extra outdoor seating and shopping queues. Even as we transition out of this pandemic, including these elements in future projects will ensure that our cities are better equipped to deal with the next crisis.

Design with greater flexibility and adaptability.

Many of the hurdles in this pandemic were to do with having to change rigid systems and infrastructure at a moments notice. We weren’t prepared and neither were our cities, but we adapted. Moving forward, we need to create streets, neighbourhoods and cities with adaptability built in. We need to consider the ‘what if ?’.

Perhaps, streets could be adapted to prioritise bikes or pedestrians at a moments notice.

Accommodate new ways of working.

The period of lockdown forced people to test working from home. Many people will continue this to some degree and others may consider working in places that aren’t home or the office. Added to this, peak travel times may change to be more spread out. As a result, there may need to be changes in how our cities, suburbs and rural areas are connected. Perhaps less people will commute daily, perhaps more will move out of the city and require better rural-city transport. Keep an eye out for the changes and react accordingly.

Use streets for better health.

Streets are the most commonly viewed and accessed elements of our cities, they have a huge potential to aid physical and mental health. By designing them with health in mind, we can create more attractive and healthier cities. Consider adding natural elements such as greenery or water to streets, pedestrianised areas, or infrastructure and design that encourages exercise or healthy habits. Of course, design for physical distancing.

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Mobility

In conversation with

Federico Parolotto.

Federico Parolotto is co-founder and Senior Partner at Mobility in Chain (MIC). He has been involved in numerous major urban planning projects worldwide. He collaborated with firms such as Foster+Partners, OMA, UNstudio, KPF and other well-known offices on several ground breaking projects. In 2011 he co-founded Flow(n) - MIC’s research unit.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to mobility in cities?

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

Although clearly a tragedy, the lockdown and the period of emergency we have gone through tells us that we can really deal with emergencies.

Three mobility components have emerged within the COVID-19 emergency: the space redistribution in dense cities to allow alternative modes of transport; peak hours spreading in order to exploit the public transport infrastructure more efficiently and to give capacity reduction; and the third one is remote working.

The problem now is that the real emergency, climate change, can jeopardise our survival on the planet.

Mobility needs to go through a strong process of decarbonisation. In my opinion, this is the real challenge.

I would also add that it is not really a ‘city challenge’ but rather a ‘country-wide challenge’. Cities are progressively removing cars, but it’s very unclear what the way out is when it comes to suburban and rural environments.

“Mobility needs to go through a strong process of decarbonisation.”

These three components are all very positive and, in a way, for the first two, COVID-19 acted as an accelerator.

I think the latter is the real game changer. For the first time in decades, we can start reducing the number of kilometres that we consume. It is time that we finally start reducing our movement in order to reduce energy consumption and therefore CO2 emissions.

This does not mean that our cities will dramatically change, or that we will start working remotely in the countryside. Our need to engage with other people is something that cannot be digitalised but we can definitely start looking at removing a set of trips from our agenda.

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Interview

“Our need to engage with other people is something that cannot be digitalised but we can definitely start looking at removing a set of trips from our agenda.”

How can we use mobility to build resilience in cities so that we are able to deal with future crises better?

More than anything, this crisis has shown us that we can respond collectively when we all perceive the risk.

It is now time to respond to the climate emergency.

Sadly ‘nature does not unify us’ as Bruno Latour mentioned, referring to the fact that the Inconvenient Truth - realised now almost 15 years ago - by Al Gore never generated the awareness or unified actions, that the movie called for. Sadly, maybe our way out is by responding to the next crisis - in which the link between our activities and the climate will be even more evident.

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City Design

Open Space Change Lessons Interview

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Open Space

An open-air love affair.

Isolation during lockdown revealed a new-found appreciation for city spaces and their influence on people’s mental and physical health. We noticed the places we missed and what we missed doing in them. As we transition to a new normal, how can we make sure that people can go to these places safely? And, how can we make these places even better for the reasons we like them?

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

We are seeing increasingly blurred boundaries in how streets, pavements and outdoor spaces are used.

More flexibility and multi-use capabilities will be designed into open spaces.

03.

04.

More spaces will be designed to have a positive impact on people’s physical and mental health.

Physical distancing will cement itself as the norm and there will be an increase in spaces, facilities and signage promoting this.

05.

People will change how they interact with culture and performance in the public realm impacting things such as crowds and audience participation.

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Open Space

What can we do?

In the short term...

Communicate calmly.

Living alongside COVID-19 requires everyone to change many of their habits. Signage will be needed for the foreseeable future but this needs to be carefully considered. It should be bold, clear and also calming.

It should help relieve, rather than add to, people’s pandemic-anxiety.

Re-designate space temporarily.

With restrictions in place, many spaces aren’t able to be used as they were prior to the pandemic. Consider redesignating spaces for alternate uses. As an example, if a space used to be for a daily food market that can’t take place, consider adding temporary greenery and flexible seating as a place for people to safely meet.

Encourage distancing.

The changing state of the pandemic means that we will be required to distance differently as time goes on.

Our public spaces need to encourage this distancing, whilst having the flexibility to adapt. Some parks have responded by painting distancing bubbles, others have provided moveable chairs in place of fixed benches. You could consider marking out running routes or other activities that encourage healthy behaviours but also safe practices.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Create micro-open spaces.

New outdoor spaces are being informally created on streets as people queue or take their refreshments outside. These activities, which may continue for a while, encroach on existing space needed for walking - which may already be inadequate for physical distancing. New developments could do well to anticipate this change in use and create areas for this new small-scale gathering or waiting.

Use open space for wellness.

Open space can be a hugely beneficial element of the city for peoples physical and mental health and wellbeing.

They are a space to meet people, to get out of the house, to relax, to exercise, to learn. Create open spaces that can be relaxing, sociable and pleasant to escape to.

Consider incorporating greenery and water, places to exercise and to socialise and of course give enough space for people to do this safely with distancing.

Plan for multiple uses.

Even when not in a crisis, flexibility is a good quality for open space - it lets you do more with what you have.

In a crisis, it allows you to keep the space in use whilst adapting to the current conditions. When creating open space, consider how you can make it more flexible, can it be designed with multiple uses from the outset?

Engage with locals.

Get input from local government, community groups and individuals when creating public space. These are the people who really know the area and have a personal investment in its improvement. Engaging with these groups will bring far greater social, environmental and ultimately economic value to your work.

Look to invest in neighbourhood-level space.

During a pandemic, and also in daily life, people look to their local spaces for escape, exercise and social connection. Invest in local, neighbourhood-level spaces such as local parks, school years as well as cycling and walking infrastructure. These simple elements can drastically improve the quality of life and health resilience of individuals, which ultimately can create a stronger community that can deal with a future crisis better.

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Open Space

In conversation with

Jeff Risom.

Jeff Risom is a Partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Gehl, based in Copenhagen. Jeff is passionate about the relationship between human experience and design and works to apply people-first design principals to communal ecosystems, such as streets, public space, food systems, and energy. Working at the intersection of urban governance, business and culture, Jeff delivers projects that are economically viable and socially equitable, as well as sustainable in terms of using energy, land and time.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to open space in cities?

COVID-19 has proven the importance of local neighbourhood public spaces. A study we conducted of public life during the pandemic shows that high quality local squares, parks and school yards are being used 2-3x as much as before COVID-19 and the previous decades have seen dramatic improvements in large iconic spaces from Trafalgar Square to Times Square and more. But it is the unsung investments in local parks, school yards, as well as walking and cycling infrastructure that has proven most vital during the pandemic. Prioritising the money to invest, the support to build, and the platforms to get inclusive input from diverse community members is absolutely vital and it will be more difficult with tight municipal budgets.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

The pandemic has fast forwarded trends related to shopping, culture, and experience, therefore I think the re-imagining of major city centres as more than just places of consumption and work is with us to stay.

The need to make the experience of public transit, rather than just the timetables and travel times, more appealing will be vital. Our survey shows people feel safest walking and cycling and in their private car. But respondents feel least safe on buses. This perception holds major impacts for congestion and traffic when offices and schools open back up again.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

I hope there are two major opportunities. The first is the nimbleness and flexibility of local government.

Programs like “self-certify”, operated by the Small Business Services in New York City, utilise intuitive online applications for things like outdoor serving and street closures. Programs like this respond to demand and show the ability of business to work hand-in-hand with local government to address real need. This form of constructive collaboration between decision-makers and citizens is a symbol of what can happen when city government and citizens are actually in sync. When both groups can agree what the major issues are and then work together to solve them.

The second is about the renewed sense of community and social life of people in cities. Our survey shows that 35% of people reported more friendly interaction with strangers, and we observed twice as many people in conversation in public space than before the Crisis.

“... the re-imagining of major city centres as more than just places of consumption and work is with us to stay.”

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Interview

“Investments in high quality local public spaces ... might be the best investments we can make to fight future pandemics.�

What can we do to help build resilience in our urban open spaces, so that we are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

The urban infrastructure of Copenhagen has proven to be a powerful tool to cope with the pandemic and quickly rebound from it. Copenhagen has a network of dedicated bicycle lanes and high-quality sidewalks forming an interconnected grid that connects people to essential amenities as well as place for fresh air, exercise, and social interaction. Investments in high quality local public spaces, especially the smaller local that cater to everyday needs of local citizens (rather than just tourists) might be the best investments we can make to fight future pandemics.

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Sectors Retail and F&B Workplace Educational Places Homes Cultural Places

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Sectors

Retail and F&B Change Lessons Interview

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Retail and F&B

This is the dawning of a new age of retail.

The retail industry was already experiencing a shift from physical shopping to online sales, shops were having to improve the customer experience to attract people. Now that people are going to be even more apprehensive about congregating in busy places, how will shops adapt?

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

We will see an acceleration in the shift from physical to online retail.

Consumers will lend preference towards smaller, local businesses over larger chains.

03.

04.

Awareness and preference for ethical consumption will rise at a more dramatic pace.

There is a growing appetite to use contact-free technology to mitigate unnecessary contact.

05.

Safety and distancing measures in shops and venues will become increasingly normalised and integrated into the experience.

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Retail and F&B

What can we do?

In the short term...

Alter your layouts.

Around the world retailers and food and beverage venues have faced strict restrictions. As these get relaxed, venues must encourage distancing through their layout design. Being shown to provide a safe and healthy environment will encourage clientele to return.

Brands and outlets deemed ‘healthy’ will perform the best moving forwards.

Let tech help you out.

Implement technologies that minimise contact. This may include automated doors, or be extended further to newer technologies such as checkout-less shopping.

Food and beverage outlets may consider app-based ordering and table-service only.

Consider the experience.

As people start going back to shops in those countries that had restrictions, reconsider what the shopping experience will be like. It will take people a long time to get used to shopping again, they will need convincing to come back out. When they do, it is likely that dwell time and browsing will be significantly reduced. Consider how you can use the physical environment to project an atmosphere that is both welcoming and clean, calm yet exiting. People’s mentalities will be different going back; accommodate for this.

Take it outside.

If you have outdoor space, utilise this where possible.

This will give you more space to distance people safely, with the added bonus that people will feel safer congregating outdoors. The practicalities of this will vary country by country and by season, but consider how you could use this new environment to your benefit and attract more people.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Embrace digital interaction.

Consumers have been increasingly interacting with brands online - whether it’s actual shopping online or following trends and brands on social media. With being unable to go to physical outlets for such a long time, the relationship between consumers and online retail has only strengthened. We have seen instances of traditional supermarkets partnering with app-based food delivery services for example. Moving forwards, retailers are going to have to reconsider how they interact with consumers and question their most fundamental practices. Are physical shops filled with products the best answer? Is it time to consider a new form of retail?

How can new practices prepare us for the next crisis?

Go local.

Invest and make space for small-scale local businesses.

People have shown a preference to these and their support is likely to be ongoing. These businesses are at greater risk from the economic fallout of the pandemic than larger more established corporations, they will need all the support they can get.

Be ethical.

Since the start of the lockdown there has been an accelerated interest towards brands with a more ethical focus - whether it’s sustainably sourced products or certifiably ethical supply lines. Some think that the pandemic has been a global shared experience, which has helped reignite a sense of solidarity and empathy.

Change how you design spaces.

With changes in restrictions, outlooks and behaviours as a result of the lockdown, certain physical typologies of retail will be preferred over others. There will be a preference for open air malls and markets over enclosed spaces. Indoor environments will need to do more to attract people into them, including accommodating for physical distancing and shielding. New pubs for example may see a return of the ‘snug’ or booth as groups seek to separate from others. There may also be an increase in drive-through or pick-up options built into venue design.

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Retail and F&B

In conversation with

Scott Malkin and William Riordan Scott Malkin is founder and Chair of Value Retail, and he is co-founder and Chair of Value Retail China.

William Riordan is a Director at Value Retail, the world’s pre-eminent creator of high end fashion shopping destinations serving the capital cities of Western Europe and the Tier One cities of China. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Urban Land Institute Europe and is Chair of their Young Leaders programme.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to retail and F&B?

and Marvin Traub, most retail locations have become soulless and commoditised.

Retail had already been going through an evolution towards digital distribution in recent years, reflecting advances in technology. The pandemic has accelerated the rate of this transformation.

Lacking a clear vision and driven by a culture that puts financial performance ahead of product, quality and experience, many retailers will struggle to adapt to our rapidly changing environment.

Many of the players in the retail property sector have been operating with inflexible and historic business models, which limit their capability to adapt to change.

As such, when confronted with a major exogenous event such as coronavirus, these organisations struggle and some may cease to exist.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

Some of the elements contributing to this are as follows:

Commoditised retail will continue to move online, except for locations with high footfall traffic or convenience. People rarely become excited or joyous buying a toothbrush from a pharmacy.

Private equity investment and public market pressures have forced out many of the creative voices who drive the originality and innovation of great brands. These days, for many retail companies the store experience and the product selection are controlled by financial executives who are focused on near term objectives and quarterly results, as opposed to brand building.

This trend has been exacerbated by increased competition from the internet, which inevitably has led to a race to the bottom, where many fine retailers are driven by product pricing at the expense of great experience. Far from emporiums of delight featuring the vision of merchants such as Harry Gordon Selfridge

The war is over - Amazon and Alibaba have won. The future of retail is digital, while the future of brands is physical.

In contrast, brands need physical flagships to define their product and to entice new customers.

These flagships create memories through providing experiences, which in turn create loyalty and build an emotional connection, thus resulting in brand equity.

Brands will choose fewer, stronger physical locations, those that have the greatest potential to create a special moment for their clients. There will be a flight to quality, with flagship physical retail thriving whilst secondary and tertiary properties struggle.

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“The war is over, Amazon and Alibaba have won. The future of retail is digital, while the future of brands is physical.”

In parallel, there will be a further stratification of the winners and losers amongst brands, with those who can reinvent themselves and stay fresh and exciting the winners.

post pandemic, due in part to the challenge of finding new customers coupled with the exponential increase in the cost of acquiring customers online (the “Google and Facebook tax”).

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

What can we do to help build resilience in the retail and F&B sector, so that we are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

This crisis is an unprecedented opportunity for both existing and entering brands, and those who serve them including their real estate partners.

The playing field has been levelled, the barriers to entry have never been lower, and a vacuum for new talent has been created.

A few examples of opportunities include, the emergence of authentic, purpose driven brands. From Allbirds to L’Estrange, authentic, mission-driven brands are appearing. These brands connect with their consumers through great product, but an even better story.

The emergence of physical and digital hybrids is also critical. A third way of retail will surfacing, one that is nether physical nor digital but a hybrid of the two. Many younger consumers have become used to purchasing through WhatsApp and other messaging platforms, but they expect to communicate with a real human and see the real product that they will purchase, ideally directly from a physical store that they have been to before.

Do not cut corners.

Create a culture that values flexibility and adaptability - one in which people are simultaneously enthusiastic about successes achieved whilst being equally hungry to improve.

Hire excellent people and support this talent with more talent. Do not assume that one great retailer or merchant will succeed. You need an army.

Invest! Invest in brand building. Invest in flagship physical locations. Invest in a solid digital infrastructure.

Understand the value to your customer or guest.

Understand why they should love you and focus on augmenting this.

Then we have the value of a physical store beyond its four walls. Landlords who can prove their value as customer acquisition engines will thrive in the period

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Sectors

Workplace Change Lessons Interview

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Workplace

We’ll never work the same.

The pandemic has seen people all over the world rapidly change how they work. New technologies, methods and habits have been adopted to adapt to cope with the situation. Which of these will we keep in the future? How will lessons we’ve learned sculpt our workplaces.

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

The way we inhabit the office will change, from work schedules to office capacities.

Physical layouts of office designs including furniture and facilities will change to comply with - and encourage - new health and safety standards.

03.

04.

The way to and from the office is changing, employees will start to provide facilities to encourage safer modes of transport.

More work will be done virtually, more technology will adopted and integrated to help this.

05.

We will see a greater focus on creating a healthy environment through things such as lighting, biophilic design, fresh air and adequate ventilation.

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Workplace

What can we do?

In the short term...

Phase your return to work.

The relationship between people and workplace has changed and will likely not return to the way it was. Employees will need to return to the workplace incrementally. Workplaces will need a lower occupant density to allow for appropriate physical distancing; some must still work at home. This can be managed in shifts, with teams taking alternate days or weeks. Those with longer commutes may be encouraged to work from home more.

Change your spaces.

The physical workplace will need to change to accommodate new guidelines and people’s comfort levels. Seating should accommodate physical distancing which means employees will likely have to be more spread out, taking up more space. Underused spaces in your workplace can be re-purposed to accommodate for people. Fewer meetings will take place in person so conference rooms are a good place to start converting into desks; at least temporarily.

Change the commute.

The commute into work is where employees face the greatest risk of contagion. Certain modes of public transport are more dangerous than others, including trains, the underground and buses. Encourage employees to take healthier and safer modes such as cycling. You can do this through implementing cycle-towork schemes, or by providing added cycle storage or maintenance facilities.

Install new technology.

Adding certain digital tools can help you to maintain a healthy and productive work environment as we transition to the new normal. Video conferencing capabilities should be maintained as people move back into the workplace as these will still be crucial with restrictions on international travel and with people working from home. Hands free technologies can also be installed to maintain hygiene around the workplace, including sensors in place of buttons, automatic doors, app-controlled devices such as coffee machines or lifts.

Create dynamic signage.

As everyone gets used to new habits and practices, signage will need to be in place to encourage people to adapt these new behaviours. Signage must be bold but friendly in order to not increase pandemic-anxiety, help people’s mental health and ultimately ensure a calm workplace environment.

Try and keep the serendipity.

As people work from home more, try and make sure that there is still a social element to work. It is good for mental health, creativity, idea sharing, company cohesion and especially for younger members of the workforce to gain real life experience and learn from others.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Create healthy buildings.

There will be greater demand from tenants and landlords for healthier buildings. Those workplaces that champion healthy building principles will be regarded higher than those that don’t. Likewise, businesses who champion - and show that they champion - healthy principles will be more desirable to potential employees.

When trying to attract the best talent, workplaces will need to consider these.

Ensure scalability.

One of the biggest issues companies faced at the start of the global lockdown was scalability. Many organisations were stuck trying to scale up IT systems, or scale down the excess empty real estate that they were still sitting on. Build scalability into your contingency plans to be more adaptable. Think about how you consume space, can you bring in more models, like rented or co-working space into your portfolio?

Think about what your physical workplace is for.

Before the pandemic many considered the office to be a default, that was where you did work. But that has all changed now, with more people working from home or splitting their time between the office, home or a third space. Really consider what your workplace is for. Is it to bring your employees together? Is it to do more collaborative work? Make a case for why your office or workplace matters and focus on creating an environment that really encourages and strengthens that.

Change the home-work relationship.

With more people working from home more often, we will need to create a new dynamic between office working and home working. New workplaces will need to bear this new relationship in mind. The flexibility to work across both environments will need to be physically built into the design.

Create a healthy dialogue.

The post-pandemic workplace will rely heavily on trust between employees and employers. There will need to be a healthy dialogue between people about clear ground rules, freedoms and the level of choice that they have.

Consider creating third spaces.

From now on, more people will choose not to spend their entire working week in the company workplace.

However, many of these same people will not want to work at home all the time either. Perhaps they have young families or share with multiple housemates. Third spaces, located outside of the city may be a suitable alternative. Somewhere people can travel to locally, by bike, that isn’t a coffee shop, their home or the office. This may take the form of a co-working space or something else entirely.

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Workplace

In conversation with

Ronen Journo.

Ronen Journo is WeWork’s Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Workplace Strategy.

Ronen is a recognised thought leader within the international real estate community and, after a 20 year tenure at CISCO, is now leading the co-working giant’s initiatives to bring innovation in the workplace sector.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to workplaces?

Rather than highlighting problems, I think the pandemic has accelerated a number of trends that we had already started to see in the past 10-15 years. Of the three most prominent ones, real estate stands at the top. Large occupiers had started to recognise that they were sitting on excess amount of space, their real estate portfolios were too large and not particularly effective. We had started to see CFOs and Heads of Real Estate discovering the ability to consume space more flexibly. Those that had this flexibility were ultimately better prepared for this crisis, most weren’t.

The next was that of companies adopting the flexibility to enable their employees to work anytime, anywhere, and any way. Ultimately it was a growth in employee choice and employer trust, which companies have now been forced to make.

The third is something that we had started to see in coworking and which has been unavoidable in lockdown.

As people discovered freedom, the choice to work as they wished, it also became clear that individual or remote work led to a loss of serendipity, community and social human contact; the ability to have a coffee, lunch or meetings with your colleagues. Maintaining this social bond will be one of our biggest hurdles moving forward.

COVID-19 has been the biggest change agent in 100 years, forcing the entire office-based portion of the planet to experience working differently. Work has been democratised, humanised and informalised - regardless of your position you are now simply a small square on a screen, free of status-symbols. But of course, this has

come with hardship, particularly for the young people in our workforce who share apartments, need a social life or are starting families. There is a very real challenge there to fix, but I hope we will be living in a much more human new normal when we get through this.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

Through this pandemic we have talked to over 60 of the world’s largest companies to investigate how they’ve responded to the pandemic and how they see a return to a new normal. What we immediately saw was the shock to the system that this had created. Within 72 hours these multi-national corporations had to virtualise 7080% of their workforce, scale up huge virtual systems, and work out how to operate remotely. In a short space of time many of the idiosyncrasies of work life - like gossip, jargon or body language power plays - became lost. But then we saw people adopting things like the ‘virtual kitchen’ on top of the ‘virtual teaming’. This will all drastically change the purpose of the office, it won’t die though. Workplaces will turn into somewhere to have social and business collaborations with others, not to do individual focus work. The office will also be a lot more data driven to help give employees and employees the choice to work how they want and need. From this, we will see Prop-techs scale rapidly and successfully.

The city won’t die either. As people spend more of their working week in their neighbourhoods, commuter towns will flourish and we will see a return to civic function, the library, childcare, local crafts. This will change the values that we put into the city. It will be a lot more human centric, rather than focused on investors, brands and buildings. It will change our personal values too. The two hours spent commuting had better be 108

Interview

“COVID-19 has been the biggest change agent in 100 years, forcing the entire officebased portion of the planet to experience working differently.”

worthwhile, and our lunch together in person will carry greater importance than ever before.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

I think the most fundamental one is the more extensive use of technology and learning how to manage people and collaborations through technology at a scale we have never seen before. It was limited to very few people in certain industries, now it’s happened to everyone.

Technology companies are going to continue to innovate, particularly in creative industries where the physical and social interactions are key. The Prop-techs that develop this are all accelerating their ideas around understanding both human behaviour in buildings, and the building’s behaviour - whether it’s helpful, with good air quality, acoustics, quality of light and so forth. So, I think we’re going to see an explosion of that.

The second one is around sustainability and social corporate responsibility and community. I think it’s all in one bucket. If an employee can work from home two or three days a week, then they’re not commuting in that time, their footprint is reduced. At the same time, they spend more time in their local area, which is where we will see a lot of innovation, including the proliferation of small co-working spaces in towns outside of cities.

What would you say are the key ingredients to building resilience in the workplace sector so that we’re able to deal with future crises better?

The number one key to resilience is having a workforce that has a very healthy dialogue with their employer. That there are clear ground rules about how much freedom and choice that a person has to perform work. On top of this, you need managers that are trained to manage people remotely and know when to bring them physically together. So, I think the first thing is human.

The second thing is technological. Many companies going into lockdown realised that huge percentages of their workforce didn’t have laptops. Or that their VPN access wasn’t scaling. Other companies were able to virtualise their companies in a matter of hours. Technology and really investing in cloud computing, mobile devices, and making sure people know how to connect and use it is crucial for sustainable businesses.

The third is, don’t carry real estate costs you don’t need.

This is a company’s second largest expense. So, if you can consume real estate from companies like WeWork, enabling you to scale up and down, then you can unplug that cost enable your business to survive.

And the third innovation is going to be, without a doubt, around human behaviour and management of people. The world of psychology and human cognitive skills is vast, and I think there is going to be a lot of research done there, as well as in the world of design and architecture.

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Sectors

Educational Places Change Lessons Interview

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Educational Places

Back to school.

The pandemic has highlighted many of the issues that lie within education systems around the world, and the subsequent knock-on effects to the home, work life and widening inequalities in our societies. We have been forced to confront difficult truths, but now must use this as a moment to implement real, meaningful change to the way we educate and sculpt young people’s minds.

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

Schools and educational institutions will be hit with significant financial difficulties as they balance lowered student capacity, lower teacherpupil ratios and necessary increases in floor area, which will have to be implemented to mitigate health risks.

Schools and universities have been able to test ways of teaching virtually, which may lead to more flexibility in attendance and teaching methods.

03.

04.

Spatial design will have to cater for the fact that certain age groups are unable to practice physical distancing.

The development and wellbeing of young people is at greater risk.

They have missed out on vital social interactions that are key to their development and can result in longterm trauma or stunted development.

05.

The closure of schools has knock-on effect on for families, reducing or eliminating a parent’s ability to continue working, increasing daily costs and adding to stress.

Equality and wellbeing gaps are widening and will need to be addressed.

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Educational Places

What can we do?

In the short term...

Provide tech for those who need it.

Whilst under lockdown children were required to log in to attend class. Whilst this is okay for many families with access to personal computers, many lower income families are more unlikely to have suitable, if any, technology at home for their child to learn. This will only increase disparities across economic lines, with unequal access to education and parents having to take time off work to help out.

Encourage virtual socialising.

Socialising and interaction with others is a key part of a child’s development. However restrictions on distancing and travel drastically hamper a child’s ability to do these things, particularly those that live rurally or that rely on school as their key social place. If students are working from home, try to structure the school day so that time is allocated for digital play with others.

Take them outside.

If possible, take school activities outside. There have been numerous studies about the benefits of children spending time outside and during a pandemic there are the added benefits of a lower risk of contagion.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Connect the school and home.

Moving forward there may be ongoing instances of children having to continue remote learning. We need to ensure that the infrastructure is laid out to enable children to learn without disruption. This includes ensuring high-speed data connectivity in homes and between homes and schools, as well as ensuring that there are systems in place already for children to digitally connect with their teachers. Engage with local and national government, some of which are rolling out schemes, such as providing students with laptops.

Change the schedule.

Design education programmes which have extra resilience built into them, so that they can adapt to changes in situation such as a pandemic. Ensure these can be delivered on-site, at home or a mix of the two.

Consider different tools for different types of learning.

For large-scale information sharing, as would classically be done in a lecture hall, consider online seminars.

For problem solving and more interpersonal learning, consider holding these on-site.

Design for distancing.

Children below a certain age are unable to socially distance of their own accord. The design of schools however can be used as a tool to naturally encouraging safe distancing - this could be through widening corridors and doorways, enabling flexible dividers between learning spaces or spacing elements further apart. Providing spaces that can cater for learning outside could also encourage the practice which can bring a huge range of benefits for children.

Build in resilience.

The majority of our classrooms were wholly unprepared for the pandemic, other crises will strike in the future. In order to prepare schools better, add flexibility into the design of classrooms and other facilities so that areas can be adapted to cater for greater physical distancing or enclosed to house smaller groups of students.

Create healthy schools.

There has been the growing discussion about how workplaces and public buildings should adopt healthy building principles, following on from the standards set by certification bodies such as WELL and Fitwell.

These principles need to be incorporated into the design of schools, including air quality and ventilation, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mental wellbeing.

Reconsider offices.

Staff offices, particularly in higher-education institutions, are typically under used. In order to make the most of your space, consider adopting multiple uses for these spaces or completely re-imagine how your inhouse staff or researchers work. Perhaps they have more agile working patterns that fit in with any new work structures you’ve conceived for the students.

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Educational Places

In conversation with

Andrew Harrison.

Andrew established Spaces That Work, an independent consultancy specialising in learning environments, in early 2011. Prior to this he was Director of Learning and Research at DEGW, an international design practice based in London. He has led many learning-related research and consulting projects nationally and internationally, exploring the impacts of technology and pedagogy change on school and higher education institution design.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to spaces for education?

Education at all levels relies on close proximity of people to each whether that is sitting in a classroom or seminar space, attending a lecture or working in groups in laboratories. At a campus level you may have thousands of students moving between classes, eating, socialising, living together and all of these activities need to be rethought and modified in the light of the pandemic and the requirements for social distancing. The pandemic does not only impact the students - the academic and professional services workplace also needs to be re- thought - how does research happen, how do staff interact with each other and with students, what sort of workplace should be provided for staff if flexible working/working from home becomes the norm?

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

The short-term impacts are operational and financial.

Operational as schools and universities accelerate their online learning offer including the provision of online classes and the use of virtual learning environments. As well as the delivery of the academic programme schools and universities have also had to develop immediate strategies for the delivery of pastoral care to students as well as devising on-line assessment approaches.

Given that academic and professional services staff are generally working from home during the pandemic this has required very frequent use of online collaboration and meeting tools.

As it becomes possible to return to campus strategies will have to be implemented to maintain a level of social

distancing which will impact class sizes, methods of course delivery and the academic timetable.

The financial implications of the pandemic are profound at all education levels. Schools will require additional teachers to manage smaller classes or to provide additional tutoring. In Higher Education the sudden loss of international student fees has had a catastrophic impact on many universities and this may be followed up by reductions in local student recruitment. Many institutions will be striving to reduce costs and this may include the intensification of space use on campus and the disposal of some buildings. We may also see the closure or merging of some institutions and this will obviously have major space implications for the institutions involved in the merger.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

There are a number of positives that have come out of the pandemic in terms of how educational space is used. The pandemic has forced institutions to accelerate their exploration of alternative methods of course delivery including distance and blended learning. The skills gained during the pandemic will continue to be applied in the future and there are likely to be a wider range of options available for on campus and off campus learning.

Linked to this, the pandemic will make institutions review how effective all spaces are in supporting the learning, teaching and research. While large lectures may, for example, support large group teaching and be cost effective for the institution are they actually 116

Interview

“The pandemic has forced institutions to accelerate their exploration of alternative methods of course delivery including distance and blended learning.”

good way of delivering the academic programme and supporting learning. Large group information delivery will increasingly be delivered using online material and face to face time used for ‘higher value’ group work and problem solving, applying the information learned online.

The pandemic is also likely to lead to a rethink of how academic and professional offices are provided. At many universities academic and professional services workplace may be 25%-35% of the total non-residential campus and yet utilisation of these spaces may only be 20-30 % as staff are elsewhere teaching, running labs or away from campus. The pandemic has forced many staff to work from home and it is likely that flexible working will continue to be the norm for many people even after the pandemic recedes as staff realise that there may be work-life benefits to developing more agile work patterns and as support for home or remote working closer to home has improved.

tools, virtual learning environments such as Moodle will allow them to create a wider range of educational offers in the future that may be attractive to local, national and international students wanting to combine learning with working or to access courses from other universities to enhance their own study experience. Improvements in the functionality of collaboration tools and the increased skills level and experience of the staff developing online and blended courses should allow institutions to rapidly transform their learning and teaching approach should another crisis require this.

Spaces in educational buildings will also need to be flexible and able to respond to changes in learning and teaching approach or radical rethinking of institution mission/courses brought on by any new crisis. Simple, loose fit buildings that can be easily adapted are likely to provide better value and resilience for institutions rather than idiosyncratic buildings designed for one particular pedagogy or academic department.

On campus this may result in less demand for ‘owned’ workspace and for the creation of more activitybased work areas for staff based on a reduced level of occupation that also allows the continuation of increased social distancing. Individual, concentrated working and administrative tasks may take place off campus with on campus time being used for interacting and collaborating with colleagues and students.

What would you say are the key ingredients to building resilience in the education sector so that we’re able to deal with future crises better?

The increased capability of institutions to deliver large parts of their academic programme using a variety of online tools including social media, online collaboration 117

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Sectors

Homes Change Lessons Interview

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Homes

Our homes can do more for us.

People around the world have experienced more of their homes in the past months than ever before, it is likely that moving forward this relationship will continue to grow. How has what we need from our homes changed? How does this impact other parts of our lives? And how as an industry can we respond?

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Change

What will change?

01.

02.

Connectivity and digital infrastructure will become a top priority as more people work and learn from home.

People will have an increased preoccupation of thermal comfort, energy efficiency, air quality, natural light, and a greater appreciation for indoor comfort levels.

03.

04.

Outdoor spaces including balconies and gardens will become a priority for people.

The need to isolate or get privacy within the home, will be a key factor in home planning.

05.

People will be working from home a lot more now, location choices will be less about work-home proximity and more about quality of life.

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Homes

What can we do?

In the short term...

Ensure resident safety and health.

Take immediate measures to ensure that your residents and on-site employees, particularly in rental or serviced accommodation, can feel safe in their daily lives. This can be through organising more and deeper cleaning regimes as well as providing extra facilities to encourage hygiene such as hand washing stations or contactless lifts and doors.

Support people digitally.

Particularly during lockdown, residents will need to be supported digitally, in terms of community and building support. If you have online community groups, strengthen these and make them more accessible. If you have a global platform or a wide audience, use this to share best practice in responding to challenges.

Take precautions.

When conducting house viewings or visits of any kind, ensure that everyone adheres to physical distancing guidelines and takes precautions such as wearing facemasks and gloves. This is particularly important for letting agents and employees who visit multiple properties a day. Where possible or preferred conduct house viewings online.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Design homes for more inhabitation.

People will be spending more time in their homes than they were before. With a greater proportion of the population likely to work and learn from home moving forward, the design of homes need to accommodate for this. Create more areas for home working or which help daytime child care.

Give space for privacy.

As more members of households spend more time at home - whether members of the same family or unrelated housemates - cater for physical privacy.

Homes built from now should offer spaces where people can be alone with their thoughts, and places where they can work undisturbed by others in the home, which is vital for people’s mental health.

Create outdoor spaces.

Many homes, particularly those for lower income households in cities, do not have any outdoor spaces including balconies, gardens or courtyards. This means that they need to go into public areas to get much needed fresh air and sun, something which can increase risk of exposure during a health crisis and is impossible for some. In preparation of future crises, homes need to allow people to get some fresh air and sun without leaving the premises.

Design healthier homes.

Homes should adhere to the healthy building principles outlined by organisations such as the WELL Building Institute and Fitwell. This includes catering for variables such as air quality and ventilation, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mental wellbeing. Particular focus should be put on incorporating these ideals into affordable and lower-income homes, whose residents won’t be able to afford as many external health and wellbeing services or to carry our retrofitting themselves.

Ensure optimum digital connectivity.

New homes should be constructed with strong digital infrastructure. There will be an increasing reliance on home internet connections as more people work and learn from home. Developments should consider this as a key factor during planning.

Add more into the building.

With people spending more time at home, people’s requirements of what they need nearby will change.

Consider adding in co-working spaces into the building, so that residents have somewhere to work outside of the immediate home but not far away. Also integrate facilities that encourage healthier lifestyles. This could be a communal gym, bike storage or a bike-share station.

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Homes

In conversation with

Adina David and Gary McLuskey.

Adina is Director of Flexible Housing at Greystar, tasked with consolidating Greystar’s global strategy around the development and acquisition of Flexible Housing assets. Gary is the Global Design Managing Director of Greystar and a qualified architect with over 25 years' experience in architectural and interior design. He oversees design strategy, innovation and design standards, supporting global design activities and assisting local teams in delivering development projects.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to housing?

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

A few of the biggest challenges that rental housing has faced during the pandemic have been around safety of residents and on-site employees, access to outdoor spaces, and ability to support community interactions.

Finding and moving into a new home has also been a big challenge for both renter and landlord. As a large operator of institutional-grade and large-scale rental housing, Greystar has utilised its global platform to share best practices and respond to these challenges.

Our teams mobilised to care for our existing residents with additional cleaning and safety measures on-site.

Our existing communities came together virtually through additional social, educational, and health programming. Future residents have been able to lease via virtual tours and video communication.

In the short-term, rental housing has had to adjust to social distancing guidelines issued by the government as well as support residents in working remotely. Some of the short-term changes may become longer term considerations, such as more contactless features in apartment buildings or more extensive workspace and productivity areas allowing for remote work.

Long-term impacts that are being considered within building design are for larger outdoor areas within projects that are not adjacent to parks and for more private outdoor spaces as well. Our new developments were already incorporating very robust digital network infrastructures to provide reliable WiFi throughout our buildings.

“Our existing communities came together virtually through additional social, educational, and health programming.�

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“Whether living in cities or the surrounding areas, mixed-use buildings will do well if they can cater to different needs across productivity, wellness, and leisure.�

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

One of the things that the pandemic has highlighted is that people in certain fields can be productive working remotely. Whether living in cities or the surrounding areas, mixed-use buildings will do well if they can cater to different needs across productivity, wellness, and leisure. There may be an initial desire to leave cities which can create opportunities for suburban offices or serviced co-working spaces that support remote work.

Co-working within urban residential buildings will also likely thrive if people continue to work flexibly. Adding in further outdoor amenities such as communal vegetable gardens and beehives or similar features will likely be attractive to long-term residents. Ensuring buildings are sustainable and efficient will also be important to future residents, so building for that now is more important than ever.

What can we do to help build resilience in housing, so that we are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

Rental housing is already a fairly resilient asset class and, when professionally managed as the manager will ensure that buildings are run efficiently, that residents are thriving, and that any changes that need to be made to current or future projects are made. All the points mentioned above can contribute to more resilient buildings long-term - sustainable buildings with efficient consumption, reliable WiFi networks throughout the property, extensive outdoor areas that also grow vegetables, large offerings of productivity spaces, including open plan, well-ventilated work space for remote workers, and a variety of fitness and wellness facilities. Providing facilities on-site that do not require travel for various needs should be attractive to residents in the short and long term. And for any travel needs, ensuring ease of access to alternative modes of transportation by supplying bike storage, ebike and scooter charging stations as well as electric car sharing options, will appeal to environmentally friendly residents.

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Sectors

Cultural Places Change Lessons Interview

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Cultural Places

Let’s get together... safely.

Attitudes to traditional ways of viewing or participating culture have drastically changed as a result of the lockdown.

In an industry that at its very core is designed to bring people together, how can we build resilience so that people can safely and confidently start enjoying cultural events, programming and places again.

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Chamge

What will change?

01.

02.

People are noticing their reliance on culture and the arts as a tool to support their mental health, through providing engagement, escapism and entertainment when social contact and possibility for activities is limited.

Cultural and arts institutions are adding online services to maintain a connection with their audiences.

This is leading to new and engaging formats and collaborations.

03.

04.

A connection between the home and culture is growing as people adapt their living spaces to engage in activities that they would usually do outside of the home.

Culture and the arts will increasingly be a local social connector, enhancing community bonds.

05.

Cultural institutions will struggle to stay afloat in the coming years.

Tourist-dependent institutions may be hit the hardest, as travel restrictions stay in place and stigmas take hold.

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Cultural Places

What can we do?

In the short term...

Integrate physical distancing into venues.

Many cultural events are centred around the idea of congregation, with people naturally grouping together. To open safely, venues will need to drastically change how they operate. Venues must physically and programmatically encourage distancing. This may be through staggering arrival times, spacing out performances, mark out seating and standing bubbles, having one-way routes or installing space dividers amongst other measures that could be taken.

Encourage healthy habits.

People will need encouragement to follow guidance as we begin to return to cultural events and venues.

Signage should be clear and calming, and hand-washing stations should be prevalent. Visitors are more likely to return to venues that clearly display their attempts to minimise risk and make clientele feel comfortable.

Take things outside.

Depending on government and seasonal restrictions in your country and area, consider moving events that don’t traditionally happen outside, outside. There is lower risk having events in the open air, and this new format to certain types of cultural programming could add an extra attraction to audiences.

Increase your online presence.

Whilst restrictions are in place for physical events.

Consider the possibilities of continuing your activities online. Increase your online presence to include talks, replacement events, exclusive online performances and the like, to keep audiences interested until they can return to the real thing.

Look local.

As we transition back to a society with cultural events, consider directing your marketing to more local audiences. Numbers of international tourists are likely to be low for a while, which many cultural institutions rely on. Try to draw in locals and tailor your outreach for this.

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Lessons

In the long term...

Formalise cultural programming.

Create a formalised programme for cultural events and institutions throughout cities. Integrating cultural programming into the planning of cities and developments can enable greater organisation and safety in the planning of events and management of people flows. Engage with local communities who can be your greatest source of information and participation, particularly as international tourist numbers will likely be low for a while. Formally programming city-wide culture can ensure events, including informal ones such as busking, are coordinated and safely managed.

Design for Distancing.

Design cultural buildings to embrace physical distancing. This can be done by creating contact-free routes within buildings, having wider circulation spaces and designing in flexibility to space out seating should a similar occurrence happen in the future. We need to build resilience into cultural buildings so that they are better prepared for our next crisis.

Embrace publicly accessible culture.

If possible, integrate publicly accessible art and events into new developments. Opening the arts up to citizens can greatly enhance the urban experience, as well as creating a relationship between people and cultural institutions that can have huge benefit for both.

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Cultural Places

In conversation with

Gordon Seabright.

Gordon Seabright joined the Creative Land Trust as Chief Executive following five and a half years leading the world-famous Eden Project. Gordon serves as a trustee of the charity Five Talents, which supports financial inclusion and building resilient communities in sub-Saharan Africa, and is director of both the community orchard in his hometown and of Cornwall’s Local Enterprise Partnership.

What are the biggest challenges that the pandemic has highlighted when it comes to culture in our cities?

We’ve been living in an age where success has been measured financially, and culture, like nature, has been obliged to justify its presence by measuring the wealth it generates. And by that measure it is incredibly important - the success of our cities is based on the creative industries. They are responsible for one in six new jobs. Yet the pandemic has shown that we have taken that success for granted, building cities where culture is squeezed to the margins. The inward investment so important to a globally connected economy like ours isn’t attracted by the weather - it’s time we took seriously the threat to the cultural life of our cities, and COVID-19 has brought that to the fore.

If we want our cities to thrive, we need to integrate art and culture into all the places where people live and work, rather than reluctantly allowing its presence in meanwhile spaces when we can’t think of anything more lucrative.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts?

Which ones are likely to last?

We’ve learned that our cultural spaces are precarious, held in the short term and with little financial fallback when the crisis came. The performing arts have been particularly badly affected due to the nature of their audience spaces, but the visual arts are under threat too, and one heartening feature of the crisis has been the way that some policymakers have rallied to protect them. The Mayor of London set up emergency business support for creative workspaces, and my organisation, the Creative Land Trust, stepped in to administer the fund as it applied to studios. In the short term, the

priority has changed from provision of more studio space to preserving what already exists.

In every crisis there is an opportunity to innovate as a response to new challenges. Where are the opportunities to innovate and grow with this pandemic?

There are two huge opportunities for positive change to come from the pandemic if we innovate now. First, we should reflect on our lockdown experience - we’ve been reminded of the things that enable us to thrive rather than just exist: friendships, nature, culture and creativity. So let’s build those things into our residential and working spaces, designing in human interactions, artistry and making, plants and opportunities for reflection. And second, as more and more retail and office spaces become surplus to requirements, instead of allowing our towns and cities to convey an air of obsolescence let’s repurpose them NOW to rebuild our communities in line with what lockdown has taught us.

“If we want our cities to thrive, we need to integrate art and culture into all the places where people live and work...”

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Interview

What can we do to help build resilience in the cultural sector, so that we are able to cope with the impacts of future crises better?

There will be another crisis - we don’t know what or when, but we can no longer claim it to be “unprecedented”. So the Creative Land Trust aims to build resilience in the creative sector by creating a new financial model, blending philanthropy with investment to provide affordable spaces for artists in perpetuity. It’s a way to leave behind the hand-to-mouth “old normal”, integrating art and creativity into developments and communities and cementing the place of culture in our cities. It’s an innovative approach, and it needs and deserves the support of everyone who cares about spaces and places.

“...we’ve been reminded of the things that enable us to thrive rather than just existing: friendships, nature, culture and creativity.”

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Contributors

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136

Contributors

PLP Labs is a design research collaborative operating at the intersection of technology, culture and space. We investigate possibilities and define solutions for tomorrow’s cities. We collaborate with leading experts from around the world and across a wide spectrum of disciplines to offer an expanded range of knowledge-based services. This cross-pollination allows the Labs to address new urban, human and digital frontiers. We aim to make cities more inclusive by increasing the number of voices participating in their change.

Our research is far-ranging, from design and technology to anthropology and social sciences. We dig deeper into the pressing issues affecting our societies and planet.

Contributors

Hala El Akl Director

Alex Davidson Project Coordinator

Get in touch with us at: engage@plplabs.com

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