Pretty sure most of you by now are familiar with the term "Coronavirus" or "Covid-19". As the name itself has indicated, it has been around since the end of year 2019. A term which used to be a stranger to most has now affected millions of life around the globe. Some handling it better than the others and most are already getting used to it. The glimpse of hope for things to return to the way they used to be are slowly fading away every single day with the new and more deadly variant appearing. The new normal has also quickly became the normal for most of us implementing new guidelines and SOP into our workflow.
None of us would have thought that this virus would have the capability to make the earth stop spinning when everything was running at its peak. Everything happen in a blink of an eye accelerating our advancement into utilizing technology and ditching the traditional way of things. At first it might seems like a huge misfortune to most not able to live their life as they once were, but if we were to take a step back and look at things. Life still goes on after the grieving part. Think about it, for those who are lucky enough to be alive, it does take more than getting used to living with the pandemic.
This pandemic is a unique piece of history in human mankind, a unique piece of event in our timeline that will be told future generations centuries and millennium from now, if we are able to survive that long. History from this pandemic will be taken as a lesson to be learn by future us. Put it this way, we all play a role in this one way or another. Rather than seeing this as a huge misfortune, we can take it as an opportunity to play a role document this piece of history. The perks of being an architect, designer or even photographers are that we have the ability to create things that influence people's life either directly or indirectly. Having said that, we should all be aware that the things we create during this unique period of time will reflect the conditions we are in and it will be seen in the coming years. Especially in the digital age where whatever we post to the internet will remain there for eternity.
Documenting this part of history isn't just merely tweaking a few designs to include plants or creating multifunctional space or shooting photos that are presenting the right SOP, cleanliness, sanitisation or to work from home. Putting your expertise and attention of details, relating the pandemic into the design of your spaces and going the extra mile of having the after thoughts could be one way to improve the standard of living and document this pandemic. Meanwhile in terms of photographing space, it could simply mean transforming the existing space to a more pandemic friendly space by turning down the styling and keeping the space clean and relevant. For example in terms of hospitality projects, it could simply mean removing throw pillow, bathrobe and bed runner to present the utmost hygiene.
Having said that, while frontliners are playing their role as the first defence in fighting this pandemic. We will play our role in doing whatever in our capability be it to document this history or even to design a better space for humans to live in times of the pandemic. We all have a role in this.
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