Enduring a crowded home: a study on design principles and apartment typologies that allow parallel activities in homes post-pandemic

Abstract

The pandemic has changed many people’s habits. Some started working remotely and others started using their home as a gym. This shift has contributed to new demands on housing architecture, namely creating homes that allow more activities to take place during the same time in accordance to people’s daily actions overlapping now more than ever before. This thesis aims to examine which design principles and apartment typologies are best to support parallel activities. The aim is to create design strategies that all work towards supporting parallel activities. The research consists of literature reviews, reference analyses and implementation sketches of the defined strategies. The questions that the thesis aims to answer are: Q1: Which design strategies do housing architecture need to incorporate to allow parallel activities to take place? Q2: How would the apartments that implement design strategies which focus on parallel activities in a multi-family residential building look like? Six design principles are derived from the research: utilizing a zoned plan and/or neutral hall apartment typology, making sure the home has a high-quality kitchen which can fit a dining table, adding outdoor spaces of at least 6 m2, creating circulation, giving the homeowners the option to choose between an open floor plan and being able to divide social rooms and lastly adding the possibility to create a temporary room. Other, more general ideas are that homes should be at least 50-60 m2 to support parallel activities. There also needs to be at least one bedroom so privacy can be achieved. The found strategies serve as the basis for a design proposal on a site by Gråberget in Majorna, Gothenburg. The project shows that it is feasible to design apartments which implement the design strategies and therefore are suitable for parallel activities. A societal transformation that began with the pandemic will cause people to change their expectations of their homes. If future housing stock is to be adapted to these changes, architecture must evolve now.