I imagine that many of us have given thought to how life will change as a result of the pandemic. As addressed in the piece below, there will definitely be a number of shifts in how works gets done, movies get made, and how students get taught. I do welcome the thought of a home-work balance that minimizes, if not avoids entirely lengthy commutes for many workers while engendering greater productivity.
We all need to not only envision the transformation passively, but work intentionally to transform our work environments and relationships, prioritizing, in particular, children's well-being in the context of a pandemic that has taken the lives of over 701,000 people in the U.S., and 4.55 million worldwide. My hope, of course, is that we collectively and individually heal from the trauma that for many individuals and families will be long lasting. In our own family, sadly and tragically, COVID has claimed three lives.
Let's not waste this opportunity to take stock of lessons learned, beginning with a valuing of all of our relations. Let's nurture a spirit of generosity and lovingkindness. I also hope that these many months of lockdowns and restrictions provide us with a new resolve to regenerate both our culture and the natural environment so that we are neither polarized in our relationships to one another nor toward our Earth mother. An unprecedented drought in the Southwestern U.S., California wildfires, and the current, massive oil spill off the California coastline that is killing birds, fish, and destroying a wildlife habitat serve as sobering reminders why we must urgently move toward a carbon-free future.
On a personal level, let's all increase our awareness of such things and simply choose and make a daily commitment to be part of a "new Earth," a place and space of equity, creativity, compassion, social justice, and unconditional love where environmental justice is the norm and not the exception. 💖
-Angela Valenzuela
Six UT Professors Envision how the Global Pandemic Will Transform their Industries Forever
Life will never be the same after COVID-19. We know this instinctively, and we know this from history books. There’s the intangible, collective grief and trauma that will impact pandemic survivors for the rest of their lives, and the political and social movements sparked by the inequalities the virus brought to light. Masks might stick around in some settings and situations. But there are countless other details of our daily lives that will change; less obvious effects that will come into sharper focus with more distance.
For instance, after the global flu pandemic in 1918, certain design elements in residential and commercial spaces permanently changed. White-tiled kitchens, bathrooms, and deli counters became the norm. Immaculate-looking surfaces evoked cleanliness and good health; any germs or grime could be easily seen and wiped away. The way many radiators are designed today, with the ability to heat a room on the coldest winter day with the window wide open, was a direct response to the Spanish flu, which was an airborne virus. This all led to housing reforms between the 1930s and 1970s, mainly to fight contagions caused by overcrowded living conditions. Times of war, famine, and in the most contemporary case of COVID-19—disease—can have long-term effects that span generations.
While we can’t predict the future, we can make educated guesses about how certain industries will be impacted by the pandemic. We spoke with UT faculty and professors from different disciplines, all experts in their fields, about what may have changed for good. We dove into the less obvious and the more tangible—what 100 years from now we may not even realize was a direct effect of COVID-19, like the superpowered steam radiators of the Roaring Twenties. Their predictions—too numerous to print—ran the gamut, from an uptick in direct-to-consumer food sales like Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) to straight-to-streaming film releases remaining the norm, and a new generation of socially conscious architects pushing to have more of a say in the design of quotidian buildings. Whether we see a more flexible workplace and the reconceptualization of work itself, a boom in plastic packaging due to our fear of touching potentially contaminated surfaces, or a new era flush with first-time novelists, post-pandemic life will be a fascinating new chapter in American history. Here are a few of our experts’ prognostications.
ARCHITECTURE
Goodbye to the old 9 to 5.
The pandemic laid bare a plethora of problems with the way our work lives are structured, and according to Dean of the School of Architecture Michelle Addington, now that we’ve seen behind the curtain, there’s no going back. Many workers who were able to clock in from home found they loved doing so. They were more productive, didn’t miss the commute, and enjoyed extra time with their families, regular exercise, new hobbies, and cooking healthier meals. Many don’t plan on returning to the office, and may not be required to, as plenty of employers have also appreciated not paying for office space. The widespread realization that a great deal of white-collar work can be accomplished via Zoom, email, and chat has led to the remote work renaissance.
That said, people miss seeing their colleagues, and many want an “in-real-life” shift as an option at least a few times each week to break up the monotony of their workweeks. Addington, a former Yale and Harvard professor who cut her teeth as a NASA engineer in the early 1970s, thinks our future workspace will be a far more flexible environment. The office—and the concept of work itself, if widespread unionizing efforts and demand for better working conditions for essential workers is any indication—will never be the same as it was in a pre-COVID world.
“How do we redesign our interior environments to allow the conductivity, the spontaneous conversations, all the things that we thought the open office plan was doing for us?” Addington asks. “Where do we find that kind of connection?”
This could mean rethinking the way time is spent in the physical work environment more than redesigning the space itself. When employees come into the office post-pandemic, that time may be geared toward collaborative tasks, leaving more challenging, deep-focus projects for untangling at the home desk. In short, collaboration will become more intentional, and all the normal structures of work are going to change.
“Basically, we’ve got to completely rethink what that is like, and allow both more individual choice, but at the same time, more community, more commonality,” Addington says.
What will that look like in practice? Workers may have more choices across the board; maybe starting their day at 7 a.m. instead of fitting themselves into the traditional 9-to-5 mold, so they can spend more time with their families. Or perhaps they’ll work longer each day but across fewer days so they can have a shorter workweek.
Addington acknowledges what public health experts have been saying: There will be future disasters and viruses, even if they are not as virulent as COVID-19. Heeding that warning will require long-term flexibility in our living and work environments, and an understanding from bosses that it’s something people will expect as they return to the office. She says that doesn’t just mean a “hot desk” arrangement—which is an office concept that predates the pandemic, wherein employees don’t have an assigned workspace.
Perhaps most important for our future, Addington believes, will be the dissolution of the hermetic seal—airtight environments that essentially seal us off from the exterior, “which too many think is a good approach to sustainability,” she says. Instead of super insulated buildings, we’ll see spaces that have differing degrees of enclosure and more of a blurring between interior and exterior. This will not only have a profound impact on energy use, but on material use. “That is what I mean when I talk about flexibility,” she continues. “It is in the environment of the spaces—and not in the very dated way of being able to move cubicles around or the more recent way of sitting anywhere you want.” Transitional spaces to the exterior will not only significantly reduce how much space needs controlling, but will in fact provide greater ventilation—the most important factor in reducing disease.
She hopes these changes will be far-reaching and systemic. “We have to completely redesign our workplaces,” Addington says. “What scares me is if we come out of this thinking, ‘We can do an even more sophisticated heating and ventilation system.’ That would be it for me. That would just be like … we can’t continue to go down that path. We just can’t. It needs to be bigger.”
