Diagram, Grammar and Language of Space-Pandemic Type

The prolonged living with the COVID-19 virus has brought deep spatial reconfigurations and social implications. Recurring lockdowns over the last two years to contain the spread of the pandemic has forced us within the limits of our home. At the same time, a range of facilities are revisited, revised and freshly created in order to address the pressing health and social needs. Several large spaces within our own neighbourhoods are converted into quarantine centres, private premises are installed with cleansing equipment, institutions have strict protocols and most public facilities are simply shut. Community halls and social organizations within neighbourhoods have extended their premises to bolster the already overflowing health infrastructure. The patterns of everyday life for a large population have strictly gotten inscribed within the boundaries of the home, while those who do not have one fail to find even a stop-gap shelter.

This studio shall look closely at the revised practices of everyday life during the course of the pandemic and propose safe and humane extensions for physical, social and health infrastructure within localized conditions, in turn articulating what we loosely call a “pandemic type”. This space shall address the issues of distancing and intimacy, displacement and gathering, shelter and homelessness, distribution and containment within its respective locality through its architecture. Participants shall closely study the new practices and spatial exigencies of the pandemic and create a localised facility that may extend as a temporary shelter, centre, public infrastructure or even an information hub. The site for the project shall be identified within a one-kilometre radius of one’s location, ideally an extension to an existing community facility. The project shall cater to not more than 20-25 people at any given time. In a pandemic-free future, the facility is expected to become a public space that may take newer roles as an open-source infrastructure for the neighbourhood.