Many people have the ambition to follow the preventive measures. Even though we do not have a lockdown with home isolation in Sweden, indoor and outdoor activities in public and commercial areas have been limited, which means that people generally spend more time at home. Your home becomes the main place for your activities, whether you like it or not. The household therefore becomes more vulnerable if someone get sick in it. To tolerate this home stay for a long time, the home needs to be flexible and adaptable, to allow it to be an office, a kindergarten and a hospital at the same time. Unfortunately, today’s homes in their layout and functionality have contributed to increased frustration, when new needs in the home could not fit existing apartment layout.
The concern we feel is how the current housing layout actually can reinforce the frustration people feel about mentally enduring a long lasting pandemic. Deficiencies in the home can make it more difficult for people to follow the preventive measures for a long time. Our ambition is therefore that a changed layout in the home can offer a long-term solution during future pandemics.
The goal is to avoid further transmission of virus in residence and still keep the dwellers’ satisfaction to life in their work/study from home period. To solve this, design strategies and aspects have been tested on a residential building context.