Entrepreneurship and architectural spaces for more sustainable and prosperous cities in a post-pandemic world***

By Lorenzo Bona

The spread of the Covid-19 and its extremely high costs – both with the loss of human lives and many slowdowns in various sectors of the global economy – has created unthinkable changes to our lifestyle and to the way we look at the surrounding reality.

This reality, in many parts of the world, is largely influenced by the quality of the links that shape the interaction between built environments, nature and economic relationships.

In addition to this, the inability to optimally manage undesirable effects of many economic activities seems more and at the origin of a series of environmental challenges (for example, air pollution, water quality, climate change).

In this context the future of our cities may appear largely uncertain, as many urban areas may be perceived as being increasingly unable to act as a safe and comfortable shelter in the event of natural events – like earthquakes, tsunamis, epidemics – which are still largely unpredictable, despite the progress of modern science.

Before Covid-19, cities were often seen as places where a dense aggregation of people usually translated in easier opportunities for social contacts and exchanges and, as a consequence of this, in other important advantages which can be largely related to the following expressions:

·       more economic prosperity

·       less diffusion of serious forms of social isolation and more psycho-physiological well-being 

In the current Covid-19 world, high levels of population density of many cities have appeared as a source of anxieties and fears, as population density itself seems one of the main elements that facilitates the exchange – from one person to another – of harmful factors, like viruses and infections.

Fortunately, a “new normal” world with less anxieties and fears seems around the corner, thanks to human creativity and its strict links to phenomenon of entrepreneurship.

According to some ideas that continue to have deep and wide-ranging impacts on economic and business studies, a main trait of this phenomenon is connected to the introduction of new products and/or new organizational methods that are able to change an existing situation.

In consideration of this, relevant forms of entrepreneurship could perhaps be mentioned recalling a wide array of organizational efforts that have arisen, both in private and public sector contexts, to help a quick recovery of our society from the pandemic crisis and the creation of new and better socio-economic scenarios.

For example, the introduction of various guidelines against Covid-19 – like those developed by public and health authorities on social distancing, self-isolation, good hygiene practices – may appear to a large extent a main result of the advent of new forms of entrepreneurship in public sector contexts.

On the other hand, the development and distribution of vaccines, and constant improvements in other medical treatments that are proving to be powerful remedies against Covid-19, could be largely viewed as some of the most significant representations of new forms of entrepreneurship in private sector contexts.

Although many of the ideas expressed so far may suggest a cautious optimism about our future, it may be helpful to extend this writing on the basis of two main sets of comments around some elements that could potentially have an influence on the times ahead of us.

First, it may not be an exaggeration to say that much of our future could be influenced not only by entrepreneurial phenomena that emerge in private and public contexts, but also by at least one other form of entrepreneurship: that one that may be viewed as a reflection of organizational efforts that animate the so called creative industries, which revolve around a few economic areas associated with the production of goods that reveal a highly creative nature and the incorporation of tangible and intangible aspects.

One of these areas is the architecture sector, with its many and diversified economic actors that directly (e.g. an architect) or indirectly (e.g. an electrician) help this sector to operate.

As the functioning of the architecture sector tends to greatly have an impact on the development of many modern cities and – because of this – on the quality of life of a multitude of people that live in urban areas, it may sound reasonable to speculate that part of our future could potentially be affected, more or less directly, by how the interactions between the many and diversified actors of this sector will continue to evolve.

Second, in relation to potential future scenarios, it may also be helpful to add that various suggestions from experts of different fields seem to increasingly subordinate the likelihood of a full and long-lasting recovery from the Covid-19 crisis to a resolute transition of our society toward:

·       more sustainable paths of socio-economic development;

·       more eco-friendly ways of doing business

·       safer, healthier and more prosperous forms of urbanization.

If we return to what was said earlier about the state of our cities on the basis of the comments made around the various forms of entrepreneurship and the recalled suggestions for a transition of our society toward better socio-economic equilibria, additional encouraging elements of reflection may arise.

On a larger scale, many urban areas seem to experience a transformation that may find a mirroring image in new spaces richer and more diversified in terms of plants and vegetation, more energy efficient buildings, more sophisticated transportation systems that use renewable energy sources.

On a smaller scale, interior design of homes and work spaces appears to be increasingly undergoing to modifications that aim to better align it to new ways of thinking and forms of lifestyle that have emerged during the pandemic.

Significant examples of the mentioned new ways of thinking and forms of lifestyle could perhaps be usefully summarized by recalling the work-from-home experience that many persons have accumulated during the pandemic and the following related trends that appear to be emerging:

·       growing popularity of remote working, as a result of unexpectedly high levels of appreciation of the advantages of this style of work;

·       increasing appeal of multifunctional spaces, like portions of buildings where people can live without clear separations between home and office contexts, as a reflection of the higher levels of popularity of remote working.

These two main trends that appear to be arising from situations of prolonged periods of indoor confinement seem to also reveal a growing interest of people in new strategies for:

·       a (re)organization of interior architectural spaces with more areas free of noise and new modular solutions that retain visual comfort elements, in order to improve the quality of work and home life;

·       a connection of indoor spaces to better quality levels of natural and artificial light, given the beneficial effects of light on human well-being;

·       an incorporation of more recyclable and durable materials, energy efficient solutions, and diversified energy sources in buildings, in order to minimize the risks that people may run in the event of a full shutdown.

 By focusing the attention on the mentioned new strategies that appear to attract a growing interest of people, some conclusions could perhaps be reached by making room to a few additional words.

One the one hand, several aspects of these strategies may appear largely functional to help our society develop the type of transition that has been previously recalled in relation to a possible full and long-lasting recovery from the current pandemic.

On the other hand, the mounting interest around these strategies may be interpreted as an increasing desire of new forms of entrepreneurship and new organizational efforts in the architecture sector.

In this light, it may appear fundamentally important for the advent of a post-pandemic world with less uncertainties for our society and our cities that the many and diversified actors of the architecture sector – like architects, carpenters and fabricators of building materials – will be able to coordinate more and more their interactions and collaborative efforts in one main direction: the discovery and application of innovative architectural solutions that can optimally respond to the new forms of lifestyle and trends that are emerging from the Covid-19 crisis.

***This writing could be largely interpreted as an extension of earlier ideas that appeared on this website, the 20th of April 2020, in a written format organized under this title: “Towards new business models in a post-pandemic world: quick reflections for adapting building products to potential new needs”. This new and more recent writing is also largely benefitting from two other ones, which are respectively linked to the following titles: “Come dovranno essere ridisegnate le città dopo la pandemia” (written in Italian in collaboration with Luca Sanna and published in Formiche.net – May 20, 2021); “Culture, Art and Creativity for Virtuous Cycles of Economic Development in a Post-Pandemic World: Some Quick Thoughts” (appeared on this website the 25th of May 2020).