Nathan Kipnis was recently the national co-chair of an effort to achieve carbon-neutral construction by the end of the decade.

Editors note: This article has been updated throughout for clarity.

More than a decade ago, the American Institute of Architects in Chicago challenged members to make a commitment to achieving carbon-neutral building construction by 2030. The campaign has since gone national, with hundreds of firms signing on and helping to prevent more than 17 million metric tons of carbon emissions in 2018 alone, according to its most recent annual report.

Nathan Kipnis, FAIA, an architect in Evanston, Illinois, has been involved with the AIAs 2030 Commitment since the programs outset. Kipnis had served as the national co-chair in 2018 and 2019. He recently spoke with the Energy News Network about the campaigns progress and the challenges it faces as members seek higher efficiency levels.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

A: When we first started we thought getting to 50% more efficient (than a 2003 baseline) was very difficult. Now every part of a house has gotten to the point where you can pick up a 70% reduction from heating, cooling, refrigeration, and lighting. With 80%, it gets very difficult. Moving forward, 90% and 100% is going to be [very challenging].

A: When we talk about something thats better, it tends to cost more. Theres four things that tend to make an increase in cost in high-performance homes. Thats the mechanical system, the electrical system, the insulation, and the windows. Everything else is pretty much the same.

A: You want to look at the home as a system and not just individual parts. When people replace their windows in their 1950s home, [that is great]. They could put windows that are twice as efficient but if they have the same insulation, the heat goes right around them. You need to also be thinking about your insulation. And you do that before you paint the interior of the house or youre never going to do it, because then youve just painted the walls, youre gonna wait 15 years. [Then when your mechanical needs to be replaced, hopefully you can replace it with an all-electric system, like an air source heat pump]. At the same time, you want to add a smart control system. Now that youve made the house really tight, you need outside ventilation brought in a controlled fashion. And thats generally an air-to-air heat exchanger. So those are the things you need to do all at once, or at least logically planned out.

A: When you get new appliances like an electric induction cooktop, this may mean that you need to upgrade your electric service coming into the house. Some people might have 100 amps and might need 200. Some people have 200 and might need 400.

Most of our clients have electric cars now. On any project we wire for electric car charging, solar panels, and for battery backup systems. A backup battery takes significant room in a mechanical room; generally four or five feet of wall space. And then in the garage, just getting the conduit there from your circuit box. I would say in the last seven or eight years, every garage, weve done that capability.

A: Right. It tended to be that the people that could make a really efficient building didnt know anything about design. And people that were really smart on design didnt want to get bogged down in the technical aspects of high efficiency. One of the things we really thrive on and have always done is what we call High Design, Low Carbon, which is actually trademarked.

A: Your options get very limited, but it doesnt mean that it cant work at affordable housing levels.

A: Buildings last a very long time and the climate is going to change enough to impact how we layout and design a home. Ive seen studies that show every 10 years that (the climate zone for) Illinois is dropping 400 miles south. In three or four or five decades, were going to have the same climate that Texas currently has. And the houses and buildings need to respond to that.

Original post:
Q&A: Illinois architect on the growing challenges of maximizing efficiency - Energy News Network

27th World Congress of Architects - UIA2020RIO is Postponed to July 2021

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Following the recommendations of public authorities and the WHO general guidelines towards the COVID-19 pandemic, The International Union of Architects, UIA, the Institute of Architects of Brazil, IAB and the Executive Committee UIA2020RIO have decided to postpone the 27th World Congress of Architects to July 2021. The announcement echoes several other events related to architecture that had to be postponed, including the Venice Biennale and the Salone del Mobile.

According to the organizers, registration fees will be automatically applied to the new Congress dates. In addition, the lectures and projects accepted for this year's Congress willstill to apply to the new program in 2021.

The UIA2020RIO will take place between the 18th and 22nd July 2021.

Excerpt from:
27th World Congress of Architects - UIA2020RIO is Postponed to July 2021 - ArchDaily

As the new coronavirus continues to spread, cities and countries around the globe have ordered citizens to retreat to their homesand stay there. As we shelter in place, the rooms where we once spent few waking hours now encapsulate our entire existenceand this short-term recalibration may have long-term effects. We spoke with eight architects and designers to find out what the COVID-19 pandemic means for the future of home designread on for their thoughts, and check back as we update this story.

Smith House by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects

MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple has always questioned consumption, and in a way all of this is reinforcing business as usual for us and our work. Were interested in economy as a democratic ideahouses should be economically accessible. Its the same way Frank Lloyd Wright thought about his Usonian homes, and how Ferdinand Porsche thought about the Volkswagen.

People think sustainability is a new thing, but traditional cultures have always operated this wayin terms of economy. Economy is what you do when you cant afford to get it wrong. Thats how we look at vernaculars. As architects were in the aesthetics business, and economy is universally an aesthetic idea. Were doing more with less. Its "frugal chic."

Maybe the pandemic is underlying whats always been important, and weve become decadent and forgot. Its about connecting interiors to outer landscapes. Its about the idea of prospect and refuge. We need that in our dwellings and always did, but especially now. We need that sense of looking out at the landscape and into the future.

I also want to mention urbanity. Weve gone a long ways away from making good communities. When you design a dwelling, its about privacy and community at the same time, which is what weve been focused on. Were making villages where homes feel private but also give a sense of community, like what were doing in Shobac. Its essential to have eyes out on the world, because you want to see whats coming. Thats a basic human comfort. Its timeless and universal. Im not a fashion guy, Im more interested in elegance and timeless principals. The crisis is making us rediscover that essence.

Off-Grid Guesthouse by Anacapa Architecture

Like millions of others, everyone in my company is now working from home. Video calls from home give us a very intimate window into each others lives. We see kids in the background bouncing on the couch, dogs barking, people in their pajamas, significant others...its been a bonding experience. Almost everyone has been loving it, and most of us have said that we feel more productive due to fewer interruptions than normally happen in our open-office environment.

However, this level of total isolation is extreme. We need to be around each otherwe need to draw together on paper, build models, walk to the coffee shop, print things, throw things, look at books, hug people, and do normal human things. When this ends, we will recalibrate, but it wont go back to the way it was before.

This experiment, especially if it lasts a long time, is going to completely redefine our ability to work from home. Companies, including us, are being forced to learn how to accommodate this, and we will find the silver lining. I think this is going to allow us more flexibility to enjoy our homes that we spend so much time creating, while still holding ourselves and our teams accountable for being effective and productive.

I can imagine, with millions of employees all working remotely, that after companies learn how to effectively work from home, they will start to reevaluate how necessary their physical office spaces are, and how much money can be saved if employees work from home at least part of the time. Some may find that they only need half as much space as they did before, and that they only need a physical office for staff meetings and in-person client meetings. But in order to make this work, there will need to be serious changes to the "home office" idea. This health crisis could possibly have a long-term effect on how important a home officeor at least a working nookis in residential design.

Amagansett Modular House by MB Architecture

Were already seeing some short-term effects: people are now spending more time at home, and finally focusing on long-overdue improvements (bigger pantries, more defined work spaces, and adding/upgrading guest bedrooms). More generally, I see a very dramatic surge in interest in our prefab buildings, from all over the country (and in fact, the world, based on our web stats). And finally, theres a surge of city residents whove moved out to the country and are looking for a permanent second home. My own sense of how this affects future home design is that the fundamentals of domestic lifecentered around life at home versus perceptions of luxurywill prevail. And that would be a very good thing.

Walk Street House by Ras-A Studio

The pandemic has given people (who might not already have experience with it) a large dose of working remotely. This might offer businesses and employees alike a glimpse of its potential and staying power. It could have us rethink what a home office isand its priority in the program of a home.

False Bay Home and Writers Cabin by Olson Kundig and Geremia Design

In times where people are resourceful and want to be connected to others, there are really beautiful things that can happen. What are the opportunities that come out of times when people have economic restraint? Or fear? I think creativity is attached to being resourceful and I live for these times because right now is when people are open minded. Instead of throwing money at something theyre being bold and thoughtful with their ideasIm hoping thats on the horizon.

I feel like people have a lot more space to dive into conversations because theyre not distracted by getting into the next meeting. People and corporations have been way more attentive to design, and more thoughtful and immersed in conversations, which will have a great impact on the projects. Clients have more bandwidth, honestly. Tuning in on a deeper level has positive results.

A lot of my clients in the bay area tend to have minimalist and modern style. But Im hoping people will be more sentimental and will be more open to bold choices. I know a lot of people that have called me to say "Im ready to paint my room." Its kind of low hanging fruit but people are bored and want to do home improvements. People are feeling a little less hesitant about experimenting. Im hoping color is something thats big time.

Theres no reason to procrastinate and theres a feeling of satisfaction in doing things like painting a room or hanging art thats been sitting in the attic. Its like a marriage. When you stay in a marriage long enough you start to shake out things and work on things that you wouldnt normally have time for. I think when your faced with living with something for long enough, you learn how to work with it and you learn how to love it in a different way. I think thats one positive thing to come out of this.

Carraig Ridge House by Young Projects

"Well design" standards will incorporate new criteria for the residential market. This will inspire architects and designers to consider new ways we can think critically and creatively about domestic environments. For example, the importance of green roofs might be completely reconsidered...which, in turn, may necessitate structural retrofitting for existing buildings, and increased standards for new residential buildings.

Millennium House by Joel Sanders Architecture

Retro futurism. I see a return to a high-modernist aesthetic championed by architect Le Corbusier at Villa Savoye: sparkling white rooms, tile, and porcelain fixtures that convey a visual sense of health and hygiene. Think of a sink that greets visitors at the entrance to Villa Savoye.

In regards to the home office, over the past decade digital technology has already transformed homes into live/work spaces where, over the course of a day, people assume a variety of personal and professional roles. The pandemic now requires almost all of us to work from home, putting pressure on all of us to retrofit our homes with technology.

Sackett Street residence by Frederick Tang Architecture

There are 8.55 million people living in NYCthe largest amount in any city in the United States. The average space per person in the city is around 531 square feet. This opens our eyes to problems with affordable yet available housing, and how we can resolve space in an efficient way so residential living does not feel crampedone of the reasons why New Yorkers leave their spaces and go out. We are human and still need connection and social activity. There will always be a need for communal spaces, but personalizing each home will be very important. This approach will make sure that people are comfortable in their own space without the anxiety of wanting to leave.

Park Avenue Prewar Apartment by Michael K. Chen Architecture

In previous crises, the home was a refuge, a place to retreat to. Now, its quickly becoming a place that people are looking forward to leave on a regular basis. I wonder if private space will take on some of the dimensions of the public space that so many of us are missing. At the same time, I think that the crisis has laid bare the shortcomings of our social fabric and safety net. Certainly in New York, there is the near-universal awareness that public schools not only educate our children, but also feed them. I hope that this awareness informs how schools are resourced and designed in the future

Arc Village Studio by Sim-Plex Design Studio

As more and more people work from home, we need to find ways to combine living areas with work spacesbut we should be careful not to decrease the quality of either space. Since space is limited in most homes, flexibility is keyfor example, a dining room table can be transformed into a work space using flexible partitions. Our Arc Village Studio project is an example of how rooms can suit different functions without degrading the quality of those spaces.

Lead illustration by Arunas Kacinskas

Related Reading:

40 Things You Can Do if Youre "Social Distancing" at Home

Li Edelkoort Thinks Coronavirus Will Change Consumer Behavior Forever

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8 Architects on How the Pandemic Will Change Our Homes Forever - Dwell

In an effort to support the COVID-19 response, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) has launched a task force to help inform public officials, healthcare facility owners and architects on adapting buildings into temporary healthcare facilities.

On a daily basis, I am hearing from our architects who feel a deep sense of moral duty to support our healthcare providers on the frontlines of this pandemic, says AIA 2020 president Jane Frederick. As our communities assess buildings to address growing surge capacity, we hope this task force will be a resource to ensure buildings are appropriately and safely adapted for our doctors and nurses.

AIA encourages federal, state and local government to adapt appropriate existing buildings to meet the growing healthcare and quarantine needs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The task force is charged with developing a COVID-19 Rapid Response Safety Space Assessment for AIA members that will include considerations for the suitability of buildings, spaces and other sites for patient care. The assessment will be developed by architects with a wide range of expertise, including healthcare facility design, urban design, public health and disaster assistance.

During the COVID-19 pandemic public health response there is an unprecedented need for the adaptive reuse of buildings to serve a variety of functions, says environmental health scientist Dr. Molly Scanlon, who is the director of standards, compliance and research at Phigenics. Architects and our allied design and construction professionals are in a unique position to leverage our advanced problem-solving skills to bring forth ideas for community implementation.

The task forcechaired by Dr. Scanlonplans to release its report in early April in an effort to help inform decisions to address the pandemic.

This is a race against time for healthcare facilities to meet bed surge capacity needs, says AIA Academy of Architecture for Health president Kirsten Waltz, who is the director of facilities, planning and design at Baystate Health. This task force will help inform best practices for quickly assessing building inventory and identifying locations that are most appropriate to be adapted for this crisis.

Waltz and other members of the task force are helping bridge the needs of healthcare providers by modifying hospitals and smaller facilities to meet the growing bed surge demand and to increase areas for medical screening, triage and other patient care.

Go here to read the rest:
Architects Take Action to Support COVID-19 Response - USGlass Metal & Glazing

Architects have turned to shipping containers to make everything from pop-up shops to co-working spaces, and even teetering towers of student housing. But now the humble corrugated steel box might have found one of its most useful reincarnations yet, in the hands of an international network of architects and engineers who have come together to convert them into two-bed intensive care units for the coronavirus pandemic.

A group of us started talking a week ago, wondering how could contribute our skills to this emergency, says Carlo Ratti, an Italian architect based in Boston, where he teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We all know there is a massive need for more intensive care units across the world, but there are problems with the two existing solutions as an official report from the Chinese government found, based on their experience of the virus.

One current solution, he says, is to take a convention centre and fill it with lots of beds, creating a field hospital overnight, as is now planned for the ExCel centre in east London. There is efficiency in the numbers, but Chinese authorities found that problems were caused by the intense concentration of contaminated air, with the result that many more of the medical staff became infected. The second solution is prefabricated hospitals, kitted out with the full mechanical ventilation and negative pressure systems needed for bio-containment, but which take several months to complete.

We thought, is there any way that you can get the speed of convention centre or tent hospital, mounted in a few hours or a couple of days, says Ratti, but at the same time have something that is as safe as the prefab hospital?

Their solution is Cura (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments), a plan to pack all the features of an intensive care unit, complete with extractors to create negative air pressure, inside a 20-foot shipping container, able to be transported anywhere and deployed in just a few hours.

Working with fellow architect Italo Rota, Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan Polytechnic, Jacobs engineers, and a pool of leading European physicians and experts in emergency management, Ratti has got funding from UniCredit to develop the first prototype, which is being manufactured in Turin. It will be deployed at a hospital in Milan, one of the epicentres of the pandemic. The designs are being made available as open source plans online, and the team hopes that it will be copied around the world. They are talking to several automotive manufacturers who might be able to mass-produce the units.

The key thing is the ease with which you can move these pods around, says Ratti. The waves of the virus travel to different regions so quickly, so we need to be able to deploy the intensive care units wherever they are needed most. The advantage of the shipping container is that the infrastructure for moving them already exists.

The pods have been designed to work as standalone units, or they can be connected by an inflatable corridor structure to create larger, multi-bed clusters. Ratti imagines the units being set up alongside existing hospitals, taking over car parks and leftover space, or being deployed as self-contained field hospitals. He estimates that each two-bed pod can be produced for around $100,000, including all medical equipment, around a third of the pre-bed cost of an emergency prefabricated hospital.

Read more:
Architect in Italy turns shipping containers into hospitals for treating Covid-19 - The Guardian

Grafton Architects Wins Competition to Design the Anthony Timberlands Center at the University of Arkansas

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Grafton Architects was selected as the winning firm to design the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas. In collaboration with Modus Studio for the planned campus design research center, the design on the project is scheduled to begin this summer.

Part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, the new applied research center will be located on the northeast corner of the universitys Windgate Art and Design District, along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in south Fayetteville. Envisioned by Grafton Architects, co-founded by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the 2020 recipients of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the project will serve as the epicenter for the Fay Jones Schools multiple timber and wood design initiatives, house the schools existing and expanding design-build program and fabrication technologies laboratories, and serve as the new home to the schools emerging graduate program in timber and wood design.

We are very excited about building our first building in the United States in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This building helps us think about the future optimistically, where the use of timber with all its possibilities, becomes real, useful and hopefully loved. -- Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara.

Conceived as a Story Book of Timber, the new Anthony Timberlands Center showcases the versatility of timber, both as the structural bones and the enclosing skin of this new building. In fact, Farrell expresses that the building itself is a teaching tool, displaying the strength, color, grain, texture and beauty of the various timbers used. Responding to the local climate and local needs, the building opens up to the general public and offers its students a state-of-the-art educational facility. The jurors described the winning project as a set of valid pragmatic ideas with a poetic solution. Simultaneously complex and simple, it expresses a high aspiration. It creates a memorable institutional landmark for the urban landscape of Fayetteville.

The selection of the design team comes after a months-long process. Grafton Architects was chosen after a first selection that narrowed down the count to 6 shortlisted teams. The other finalist firms were WT/GO Architecture of New Haven, Connecticut; Dorte Mandrup A/S of Copenhagen, Denmark; Shigeru Ban Architects of Tokyo/New York/Paris; Kennedy & Violich Architecture of Boston, Massachusetts; and LEVER Architecture of Portland, Oregon.

The University of Arkansas has been a leader in showcasing all the benefits of mass timber architecture. We are looking forward to the results of a leading architectural university working with this years Pritzker Prize winners to take wood-based architecture to new heights. -- Carlton Owen, CEO of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities.

Read the rest here:
Grafton Architects Wins Competition to Design the Anthony Timberlands Center at the University of Arkansas - ArchDaily

PBDW Architects recently completed 'The Egg,' as it is affectionately known to students, faculty, and families - the new community room at the Riverdale Country School in New York City that juxtaposes art and technology.

The design is a smart use of space for an educational institution trying to maximize its physical assets. It engages the inside corner of the 1,200 sf, L-shaped lobby that was once used for storage.

The striking community conference room features faceted, low-iron glass panels composing an inverted oval cone. The volume provides a protective yet highly transparent shell around the space within, mimicking an 'egg' shape.

Its glass walls reflect the ongoing flow of students and collaboration throughout the space, while the back wall of the room hosts a large LED monitor array-integral to the design-transmitting information and images to passing students and faculty.

Photography: 2020 Francis Dzikowski/OTTO

The rest is here:
PBDW Architects Completes The New 'Egg' in Riverdale Country School's Basket - Dexigner

Hardly any other American city is as closely associated with higher education as Boston, with some of its universities making frequent appearances in Archinect's academia-related news coverage.

As part of our month-long editorial Spotlight on Boston, why not take a look at ten standout architecture projects for institutions of higher learning and K12 schools in the greater Boston area? All selections were picked from projects uploaded to Firm profiles of practices based in the city.

Searching for architectural jobs in the region? Check out these firms that are currently hiring in the city and catch up also with our latest curated job picks specifically for Boston.

If you missed our recent regional project roundups, head over to Miami, Austin, Los Angeles, and, most recently, residential projects in Boston.

New England Conservatory Student Life and Performance Center in Boston by Ann Beha Architects (Design Architect) with Gensler (Associate Architect); Photo: Peter Vanderwarker

Harvard University Science and Engineering Complex for Harvard University in Boston by Behnisch Architekten; Photo: Behnisch Architekten

Lesley University Lunder Arts Center in Cambridge by Bruner/Cott Architects; Photo: Robert Benson Photography

Coolidge Corner School in Brookline by HMFH Architects Inc.; Photo: Ed Wonsek

Boston University College of Fine Arts for Boston University in Boston by Wilson Butler Architects

Carl and Ruth Shapiro Admissions Center, Brandeis University in Waltham by Charles Rose Architects

Northeastern University 177 Huntington Avenue, Floors 13 & 22 for Northeastern University in Boston by Saam Architecture; Photo: Christian Phillips Photography

Brooke Charter High School in Mattapan by Arrowstreet; Photo: Anthony Crisafulli

MIT Beaver Works for Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge by Merge Architects; Millwork: RadLab, Inc., Infrastructure, Ltd., Martin Design, Mystic Millwork; Photo: John Horner Photography, David Bragdon

If you'd like to see more curated projects from Firm and People profiles on Archinect, check out our weekly "Ten Top Images on Archinect's Pinterest Boards" posts.

Want to be included in one of the next roundups?

Simply upload your work as a Project post to your Archinect People or Firm profile, and with some luck, your work may get featured!

See the rest here:
10 academic architecture projects in Boston we liked this month by architects based in Boston - Archinect

Tributes have poured in for architect and critic Michael Sorkin, who has died aged 71 of complications caused by Covid-19.

Based in New York, Sorkin headed architecture firm Michael Sorkin Studio and was president of non-profit research group Terreform.

His death triggered shock and an outpouring of warm tributes from architects, critics and writers around the world.

"He was a supremely gifted, astute and acerbic writer"

"I am heartbroken. This is a great loss," tweeted New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. "He was so many things. He was a supremely gifted, astute and acerbic writer. He wrote with moral force about big ideas and about the granular experience of life at the level of the street."

"Whether or not one agreed with Michael Sorkin didn't matter in the end," added Chicago Tribune critic Blair Kamin. "He was a great activist critic fearless, unafraid to challenge received wisdom or powerful figures, and, because of his wit and insight, a pleasure to read."

"The architecture world has lost a brilliant mind," said Harriet Harriss, dean of New York's Pratt Institute School of Architecture.

Financial Times architecture correspondent Edwin Heathcote described Sorkin as a "fierce and brilliant critic, perhaps the best".

"No one wrote about architecture like Michael Sorkin"

Graphic designer Michael Beirut said: "No one wrote about architecture like Michael Sorkin. I miss him already".

"Damn," said writer Geoff Manaugh. "Always loved this from him: 'Fish are symmetrical but only until they wiggle. Our effort is to measure the space between the fish and the wiggle. This is the study of a lifetime.'

Sorkin was an architect, a writer and the director of the graduate programme in urban design at City College of New York (CCNY).

He had also taught at a number of institutions including London's Architectural Association and American schools Cooper Union, Harvard University and Columbia University.

Sorkin served as architecture critic New York paper The Village Voice

He was architecture critic for New York news and culture paper The Village Voice for 10 years and contributed to Architectural Record, the New York Timesand the Wall Street Journal.

"That's so sad," said Design Museum curator Justin McGuirk. "His writing, especially the Village Voice columns, was a big early influence. Remember fondly him drinking me under the table in Greenwich Village. RIP Michael."

At the time of his death, he was also serving as the principal of the Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, which he founded in 2005, and editor-in-chief of its magazine UR (Urban Research).

He also wrote and edited a total of 20 books, with the most recent including All Over The Map: Writing on Buildings and Cities and Twenty Minutes in Manhattan.

Sorkin was born in Washington DC in 1948. He gained a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1970 and completed a master's in architecture from Massachusetts Institute of Technology four years later. He died on Thursday 26 March 2020.

His death follows that of Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti, designer of Palermo's ZEN neighbourhood and the renovation of Barcelona's Olympic stadium, who died earlier this month aged of 92 of coronavirus.

Photo of Sorkin was posted to Twitter by Harriet Harriss.

Read this article:
"Fierce and brilliant" architect and critic Michael Sorkin dies of coronavirus - Dezeen

How is Coronavirus Affecting the Daily Lives of Architects? Our Readers Answer

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A glimpse of hope emerged from the endless loop of COVID-19 news this week when China announced the closure of their last temporary hospital in Wuhan due to their stabilization of the pandemic that has now taken the world by storm. Western countries have been enforcing more restrictive measures aiming to stop the spread of the virus, including mandating shelter-in-place orders and forcing any business deemed non-essential to close. Due to the quarantine and isolation politics imposed by the authorities around the globe, we asked you, our readers, how the coronavirus is affecting your daily life as architects and designers. These answers allowed us to compose an overall picture of the atmosphere established by the pandemic and the way we are adapting to it.

Our pollsurveyed our Spanish, English and Portuguese platforms, and more than 600 readers shared their experiences. Most of the participants (39%) were between 21 and 30 years old, followed by the groupranging between 31 and 40 years old (29%). Readers between ages 41 and 50 represent 13% of thesurvey participants, while 9% were between 50 and 60, and readers over 60 were 7% of the readers who shared their experiences since the outbreak.

We also discovered that approximately 65% of theparticipantsstated that they had already worked from home before the quarantine in some capacity, whether just for a few days, or as a part of their regular routine. For the others, the newreality of adapting to a home officehas broughtmany challenges, related to the ability to focus on work and finding new means of communication with colleagues.

For many of those surveyed, one of the main challenges of having to work from home is the inability to connect with colleagues for informal conversations. The idea of remaining isolated for an undefined period of time, compounded with the general sensation of anxiety has brought a variety of disruptions to usual work flow, demanding an additional layer of communication. Video and phone calls, social networks, and other technology platforms have helped maintain synergy among team members.

The ability to access to the files and digital drawings was another frequently mentioned topic in our survey, which have been supplemented with cloud servers and private company networks. The readers of our three platforms pointed out the slowness and instability of internet services as a major downside to working from home, thathas resulted in designers spending more time working than usual.

One of the main challenges of designers who have made the transition to working at home is the difficulty in maintaining their typical work pace and finding the discipline to focus on daily tasks. Distractions caused by other family members who are also facing quarantine lock down measures, pets, neighboring noises, and domestic activities were cited as a few of themain obstacles to work at home. The lack of spaces exclusively dedicated to work have forced some of our readers to improvise small offices in their living rooms or bedrooms, only further adding to the inefficiencies of having to work from home.

The absence of a barrier between domestic life and work also seems toconcernsomeof the readerswho have been working more hours than usual since the quarantine began.

Among the readers worries was the uncertainty of facing a potential economic recession. Projects that have alreadybegun design and construction phases are being closely monitored, and some architects are seeing that clients are hesitant to sign contracts and award more work. Thefear of this potential crisis and its immeasurably directly impact the concerns of architects andother design professionals around the globe.

While a home office might be a temporary solution for many architects and designers, it only works to a certain extent. Throughout this quarantine, many countries have deemed construction services as essential, which means that sites are still being built, evenas architects are required to stay home. The amount of on-site meetings and coordination that traditionally happens through face to face social interactions needs to find a new medium in order to continue to have successfully completed projects.

"Workingfrom home in a third world country is a privilegenot often shared by the laborers. These skilled workers are forced tochoose between going to work and being exposed to the virus, or to stay home, depriving themselves of basic needs since they live exclusively from their work. Some of these countries have governments that lack of humanitarian initiatives to help them financially during this crisis."

Jeric Rustia, Philippines Architect

Some readers also expressed that they have experienced local building departmentsinvolved in the project approvalshalting not only the start of new construction, but also not approving drawingsthat have been completed since the quarantine period began.

On the other hand, some readers said that despite the myriad of challenges and problems imposed by the isolation, there are a few advantages of remote working. No longer having to spend the time commuting intothe office, which in cities like So Paulo or New York can sometimes take up two hours, designers have gained additionaltime that before was not available for leisurely activities. Some survey participants noted that spending more time with their families, cooking, reading, and watching TV are activities that they now havemore time for.

The greatest opportunity though, is how to undermine this moment of crisis and rethink the modes of work that have become commonplace in most architecture officesaroundthe world. Improving remote communication abilities, storing project files in the cloud, and implementing the use of BIM models are just a few ways that offices have come to adapt and modernize their methods of practice.

"It is mandatory we rethink completely our role as architecture professionals. Will we all be seen as necessary in this field? I think not. In Italy, we are 153,000 strong, and architectural design is still been seen as a luxury service. The Coronavirus will change the priorities of people for better. This is a great opportunity to define how architectural projects positively affect the lives of the people who will ultimately inhabit them."

- Francesca Perani, Italian architect.

With any global crisis of this scale, there are many fears and unknowns that our readers have expressed that they face in their new ways of working. As seen from our perspective, this might be the starting pointfora deeply-rooted transformation in the way we work, communicate, and practice architecture. Despite the fear of a possible recession, our readers as designers fromaround theworld, seem to seek strength and believe that together we will not only overcome this, but we will also discover a more human futurein our profession.

We invite you to check out ArchDaily's coverage related to COVID-19, read our tips and articles on Productivity When Working from Home and learn about technical recommendations for Healthy Design in your future projects. Also, remember to review the latest advice and information on COVID-19 from the World Health Organization (WHO) website.

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How is Coronavirus Affecting the Daily Lives of Architects? Our Readers Answer - ArchDaily