How Will / Should Home Design Change Post Covid-19?
How Will We Create Safer, Happier, Healthier, and More Eco-Friendly Spaces for Living / Working / Loving / Playing Post Pandemic?
Very broadly speaking, home design or home renovation will now have to heavily consider two factors that may have been much further in the background before the pandemic. In no particular order…
HYGIENE / CLEANLINESS: Now that we are all acutely aware of the importance of hand-washing; of the the threat of public / communal surfaces such as light switches and handrails; and are starting to understand just how many things we touch going from a simple point A-B, modern home design - especially bathrooms! - must take into consideration ways to reduce chances of contamination and make updated hygiene practices come as second nature. When that longed for day of Covid-19 being long behind us finally arrives, we will still need to embrace a new way of life that involves a higher level of diligence. As designers, our job (and greatest pleasure) is to solve problems. And JMorris Design has ALWAYS had a practice of function before beauty. This is certainly no exception and the fun part is finding ways to make function beautiful.
Check out this fascinating article entitled ‘How Infectious Disease Defined the American Bathroom’, published on Citylab written by Elizabeth Yuko. Essentially the modern, white, open-style bathroom is an innovation stemming from outbreaks such as tuberculosis, cholera, and influenza. i.e. a sterile environment that was easier to clean and more hospital-like. Truly an example of ‘form follows function’. Additional design elements from the past, such as the ‘water closet’ (a toilet in it’s own separate room), and separate sinks in addition to those in the bathroom (for example, in a hallway near the front door), encourage good hygiene and make it much easier to achieve. Shame on us for letting those innovations fall by the wayside, but hooray for the opportunity to bring them back. Powder rooms are thankfully still en vogue, and serve as a cleaning station without proximity to potentially dirty toilets. Sinks can be found in very small but very useful sizes (especially if you’re considering adding a powder room or extra sink into a small apartment). Check out, for example, the powder room in my ‘4th Street Luxe and Lean’ project wherein we turned a small hallway closet into a deluxe, efficient powder room.
You don’t need a lot of space to create a gorgeous powder room!
#WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH
I’ll say it again
#WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH #WFH
Many people have secretly (or not so secretly) longed for more opportunity to work from home, reduce commute times, have more control and flexibility as to when it’s ok to work in bunny slippers, or when some in-person collaboration and creativity is needed. Granted we never expected this shift to be coupled with a worlwide disaster which includes our kids, spouses, and neighbors also being at home 24/7 but here we are. And if anything this has kicked our design-minds into higher gear than anything else ever could have.
A home office for many has been an after-thought, a place to check email at night, pay some bills. Maybe it was stuffed into a guest room, or maybe it was just some space cleared off for a laptop on a multi-purpose dining table. But countless economists, epidemiologists, journalists, and instagrammers alike all conclude that ‘Work From Home Is Here to Stay’ (also the title of a recent article in The Atlantic.). Even if / when workers trickle back into patterns of commuting and working alongside colleagues in the flesh (hopefully not too much flesh), many companies will both want and need to implement more prominent work from home programs and habits. Given the rapid need to do this, many of us have had a MORE than awkward and sometimes painful transition into ‘work-from-home’ mode, not only because of kids and home-schooling, and/or health / financial concerns..but also our homes have often not been properly set-up for this new lifestyle. Don’t let a lack of space get in your way. Extra spaces such as guest rooms can easily be made into dual-purpose home offices. Such as our ‘adding a beautiful murphy bed option into a home office, from my ‘Park Slope Glam’ project. If even an extra room is not an option, a corner of a living room or bedroom can also work beautifully with a compact corner desk. Don’t forget to add plants for extra cheeriness.
A Ligne Roset sofa on rollers slides magically out of the way to reveal an easy-breezy murphy bed. Not pictured on the side is a desk, creating the perfect home office / guest room / lounge-combo.