Architecture after Covid

In 2020, the COVID pandemic unfolded and transformed the lives of billions across the world. As the invisible killer marched across continents, causing unprecedented disruption worldwide, architects and designers began rethinking how to design cities and adapt their practice so that we might continue to live together in the future. Architecture after COVID is the first book to explore the pandemic's transformative impacts upon the architectural profession. It raises new questions about the intertwined natures of architectural production, science, society, and spatial practice – questions which had lain latent in the profession for years, but which the COVID pandemic brought to the fore. The book explores how the pandemic modified the spatial conventions of everyday life in the city, and looks in detail at how it has transformed building typologies. It also shows how the continuing risk of pandemics leads us to rethink the social dimension of architecture and urban design; and ultimately proposes a radical re-evaluation of the conditions of architectural practice – making a compelling argument about the changing agency of architectural design and the importance of designers in re-ordering the post-pandemic world. Packed with interviews and case-studies from a wide range of contemporary design practices, Architecture after COVID will inspire debates among architectural practitioners and theorists alike. The broad view of the approach and the depth of the professional issues at stake mean that this book will offer key insights for the discipline long beyond the scope of the COVID pandemic – as it explores the long-lasting bond between city, science and society as the 'new normal' begins to emerge.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction The return of Dr Rieux Responses to the pandemic 'Distant' as a new form of knowledge Architecture after Covid Chapter 1: A 'parasite' in the city Occupying space Architecture and illness Virus, lab, city The laboratorization of space Chapter 2: The laboratorization of urban space Deserted cities, empty buildings Counting bodies Spacing, distancing Contactless lives Sanitizing, face covering The new 'modulor' Pandemic pictograms De-centring the disease The power of entrapment Urban metamorphosis: the new technologies of containment and visibility Chapter 3: Pandemic variations of design practice Routines: the 'magic' of the office space Slowing down: the return to the verbal, the written and the sketch Stepping aside and speeding up: technological developments New compositions: re-connecting with the 'others' New variants of practice Conclusion: Architectural research extended to things Historicity and virus New reflexivity, new methods Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Albena Yaneva is Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Manchester, UK. She is the author of several books, including: The Making of a Building, Made by the OMA, Mapping Controversies in Architecture, Five Ways to Make Architecture Political, and Bruno Latour for Architects.

Review :
Yaneva's book is an ethnography of architectural innovation, an investigation of how spatial designers and designs respond and work in a moment of crisis. For this important field – an architectural design of disasters – Yaneva's new book contributes with a great and interesting case, as well as with important theoretical and methodological insights. I hope it will inspire others both in spirit, approach and in choice of subject, because this is a field that is in urgent need of further explorations. With piercing attention to the swirling “now” of architects, the things they make, and how they make them, Albena Yaneva creatively takes the pandemic as a lens that reveals new dimensions of space, global cities, and architectural practices from around the world. Starting with the moment Covid-19 became part of daily life, the book is both a mirror into our recent transformations, and a cultural touchstone for future readers who wonder how we humans together with our virus redefine our shared lives. A fascinating account of professional and collective life during the pandemic, reminding us of the extraordinary spatial and working conditions that we all experienced in those strange times. The book shows the lessons learnt by practitioners, and asks important questions as to how architectural practice can and should develop and adapt post-pandemic.