Watch: The effects of COVID-19 on future built environment thinking

In this lecture, I discussed how COVID-19 has transformed the way in which we use space to live, work, play or learn and has necessitated an evolution in the way we perceive, educate, and potentially (re)design our cities, buildings, and landscapes.

Whilst the immediate natural inclination is for an increase in spatial proportions to allow for social distancing, the city has, for centuries, evolved into its increasingly high-density guise as the product of Man’s need for convergence – regardless of the economic, political, religious, and/or cultural motivation.

Such migratory patterns to cities have yielded the urban habitats that we inhabit today, and whilst COVID-19 continues to be a disruptive influence on those patterns, our responses should be as equally socio-culturally weighted as they are spatial.