Post-Pandemic Living
Dicky Lewis is the Architect and Director of White Red Architects. In this article, he discusses why residential developments must adapt to changes brought about by the pandemic.
As we look to a near future of a post-pandemic landscape, residential developments are at the forefront of change. Landlords and developers are looking to understand what the future of living will mean for their developments.
Even omitting the impact of coronavirus, residential development has been at the forefront of a variety of controversies. Starting with the ever-expanding housing shortage, it’s clear that there is an urgent demand for residential development to pick up momentum in response. Post-Grenfell cladding issues that are clouding new developments seem to be a long way from being resolved and have created a large amount of uncertainty, impacting progress. Rising ground rents may be a consequence of the cladding debacle but also can be symptomatic of poorly considered new build developments.
The recent requirements for the majority of us to ‘work from home’ has meant that the time we have spent looking at our own four walls has enabled us to have some serious contemplation on the quality of space within which people are living.
A major consequence has been the fact that work and living are now inextricably linked. Dedicated spaces for working from home can’t be overlooked in future developments. Whilst the shrewdest of developers often look to maximise the efficiency of development, it would be amiss to overlook the provision of sufficient space to ‘WFH’ for a development to be attractive to residents.
21% of households in London are without outdoor space. The green parks of London have been a saviour for the city dwellers during the lockdown. This has put amenity and community space at the forefront of development and will play a key selling point for developments.
As a practice, we have benefited from designing residential developments during one of the most disruptive and challenging years. This has positively influenced our approach to designing spaces. A recent project that we have designed in Luton takes into consideration the way in which residents live and work within the development and ensures that the scheme isn’t just perceived as a London commuter block. The design aims to be suitable for a wide demographic such as families, first-time buyers and renters, set within an environment that has significant amenity space enabling a community to be created.
Ensuring quality of design means that green spaces are thoughtfully designed and not value engineered later down the line. Cladding must respond to the identity of the development and be true to materiality and sustainability whilst technically ensuring fire compliance.
It’s now more important than ever that new residential developments in the post-pandemic world take lessons from it and adapt in order to progress. Most commercial sectors have been forced to innovate in response to the pandemic; however, residential remains complicated and continues to determine what solutions are available and suitable.